Thursday, June 28, 2007

Big Oil and Big Media V. Hugo Chavez

Big Oil and Big Media V. Hugo Chavez - by Stephen Lendman

On June 27, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal vied for attention with feature stories on oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips "walking away from their multi-billion-dollar investments in Venezuela" as the Journal put it or standing "Defiant in Venezuela" as the Times headlined. Both papers can barely contain their displeasure over Hugo Chavez wanting Venezuela to have majority ownership of its own assets and no longer let Big (foreign) Oil investors plunder them. Those days are over. State oil company PDVSA is now majority shareholder with a 78% interest in four Orinoco joint ventures. That's up from previous stakes of from 30 to 49.9%. That's how it should be, but it can't stop the Journal and Times from whining about it.

What ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips reject, oil giants Chevron, BP PLC, Total SA and Statoil ASA agreed to. They're willing to accept less of a huge profit they'll get by staying instead of none at all by pouting and walking away as their US counterparts did. Or did they? The Wall Street Journal reports "Conoco isn't throwing in the towel in Venezuela yet. By not signing a deal, the Houston company kept open the option of pursuing compensation through arbitration." Exxon, however, is mum on that option for now. Responding to Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez saying the two oil giants will lose their stakes in the Orinoco oil fields altogether, a company spokesperson expressed "disappoint(ment) that we have been unable to reach an agreement on the terms for migration to a mixed enterprise structure (but will) continue discussions with the Venezuelan government on a way forward."

So what's likely ahead as most Big Oil giants agree to Venezuela's terms while two outliers haven't yet but may in the end do so. The country's oil reserves are too lucrative to walk away from, especially with Russia now pressuring foreign investors the same way. It also wants majority stakes in its own resources with its giant oil and gas company Gazprom in control. It has a monopoly over the country's Sakhalin gas field exports and has taken over two of the largest energy projects in eastern Russia.

If these actions by Venezuela and Russia succeed as is likely, they may influence other oil producing nations to follow a similar course and pursue plans for larger stakes in their own resources as well. Why not? They own them and even with less ownership interests, Big Oil will still earn huge profits from their foreign investments. They just won't be quite as huge as they once were with one-sided deals benefitting them most. So the end of this story may not be its end according to Michael Goldbert, head of the international dispute resolution group at Baker Botts, an influential law firm representing major international oil companies. He said he didn't think the June 26 actions were "necessarily the end of the story (adding) The prospects of a deal are never over until a sale is made or an arbitrator reaches a decision."

The investments are large ranging from $2.5 - $4.5 billion for Conoco and $800 million for Exxon if Venezuela assumes ownership of its heavy oil projects. Conoco explained "Although the company is hopeful that the negotiations will be successful, it has preserved all legal rights, including international arbitration." Exxon also expressed its hope an agreement could be reached permitting it to continue operating in an ownership role.

It looks like Conoco and Exxon want one foot in and the other outside Venezuela to keep its interests in the country alive. It also looks like they're playing games and letting the Wall Street Journal and New York Times do their moaning about what they ought to be grateful for - the right to invest and earn huge profits the way other Big Oil investors are opting to do. Despite their June 26 decisions, Exxon and Conoco may, in the end, make the same choice. If they don't, the stakes they relinquish will shift to other producers according to James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Florida. He said production won't halt, and "Before everyone walks out, a deal will be struck and production there will continue." Caracas-based petroleum economist Mazhar al-Shereidah agrees saying "Venezuela is now free to find other partners (and) this doesn't constitute a dramatic situation." There are plenty of capable and willing takers around.

Conoco and Exxon may in the end accept less of a good investment, stop whining about it, and continue operating in Venezuela. Why not? The country is more open than many other oil-producing nations with much of their world's proved reserves controlled by state monopolies barring private investment. Venezuela barred them from 1975 - 1992 when the nation's energy sector was completely nationalized. That changed with a series of partial privatizations in the 1990s, and Chavez said he has no plans to reinstitute a complete oil industry nationalization. Private investors can thus remain in the country and continue earning huge profits doing so. Conoco and Exxon may decide after all to share in them.

Venezuelan V. Iraqi Oil Policies - A Study in Contrasts

High-level US officials from the administration, Congress and Pentagon are pressuring the puppet Iraqi parliament to pass its new "Hydrocarbon Law" drafted in Washington and by Big US and UK oil companies. Its provisions are in stark contrast to Venezuela's oil management policies under Hugo Chavez. For Chavez, his nation and peoples' interests come first. In Iraq, however, Big Oil licensed plunder will become law if the parliament agrees to accept what its occupier and corporate interests demand. At this stage, it's nearly certain it will clearing the way for stealing part of what a US state department spokesperson in 1945 called "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" - the vast (mostly Saudi) Middle East oil reserves.

In Venezuela, the nation and its people will benefit most from the country's oil wealth. In Iraq, their resources are earmarked mostly for Big US and UK Oil. The new "Hydrocarbon Law" is a shameless act of theft on the grandest of scale. It's a privatization blueprint for plunder giving foreign investors a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a mere sliver for themselves. As now written, its complex provisions give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control of just 17 of the country's 80 known oil fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits set aside for foreign investors.

Even worse, Big Oil is free to expropriate all earnings with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. Foreign investors will be granted long-term contracts up to 30 or more years, dispossessing Iraq and its people of their own resources in a naked scheme to steal them.

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and rest of the dominant US media shamelessly denounce Hugo Chavez for his courage and honor doing the right thing. In contrast, their silence, and effective complicity, on what will be one of the greatest ever corporate crimes when implemented shows their gross hypocrisy. It'll be up to the people of Iraq to resist and reclaim what Venezuelan people already have from its social democratic leader serving their interests above all others.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Reviewing Linda McQuaig's Holding the Bully's Coat

Reviewing Linda McQuaig's "Holding the Bully's Coat" - by Stephen Lendman

Linda McQuaig is a prominent, award-winning Canadian journalist, sadly less well known in the US because she writes about her own country. She was a national reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail before joining the Toronto Star where she now covers Canadian politics with her trademark combination of solid research, keen analysis, irreverence and passion. She's easy to read, never boring, and fearless. The National Post called her "Canada's Michael Moore."

McQuaig is also a prolific author with a well-deserved reputation for taking on the establishment. In her previous seven books, she challenged Canada's deficit reduction scheme to gut essential social services. She explained how the rich used the country's tax system for greater riches the way it happened in the US since Ronald Reagan, then exploded under George Bush. She exposed the fraud of "free trade" empowering giant corporations over sovereign states while exploiting working people everywhere.

She also showed how successive Canadian governments waged war on equality since the 1980s, and in her last book before her newest one she took aim at why the US invaded and occupied Iraq. It's catchy title is "It's the Crude, Dude: war, big oil, and the fight for the planet." It's no secret America's wars in the Middle East and Central Asia are to control what Franklin Roosevelt's State Department in 1945 called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history - the huge amount of Middle East oil alone and veto power over how it's disbursed and to whom.

"Holding the Bully's Coat - Canada and the US Empire" is her eighth book. She writes about a country slightly larger than the US in geographic size with around one-tenth the population and one-twelfth the GDP. It also shares the world's longest relatively open, undefended border extending 3145 miles. In her book, McQuaig explains how corporate-Canada, its elitist "comprador class," the Department of National Defense (DND), and mainstream commentators want Canada to be Washington's subservient junior partner. The result is Ottawa abandoned its traditional role in peacekeeping, supporting internationalism, as a fair-minded mediator and conciliator, and it's continuing downhill from there.

Today Canada's allied with the Bush administration's belligerent lawlessness in its phony "war on terrorism." It's not part of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq but joined Washington's war of aggression and illegal occupation in Afghanistan. In February, 2004, it partnered with the US and France ousting democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, then became part of the repressive Blue Helmet MINUSTAH paramilitary force onslaught against his Lavalas movement and Haitian people under cover of "peacekeeping." More on that below.

In "Holding the Bully's Coat," McQuaig further explains how Canada lost its moorings. As an appendage of the US empire, it abandoned its traditional commitment to equality, inclusiveness, and rule of law. She wants her country to disgorge this virus plaguing it - its uncharacteristic culture of militarism, loss of sovereignty and one-sided support of privilege, returning to its roots to reclaim its once proud status now lost. Its leaders might recall former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz's lament saying: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US." Closeness plagues Canada, too. It can't choose neighborhoods but can still go its own sovereign way.

This review covers McQuaig's important book in detail so readers can learn what afflicts America affects Canada as well. It's a cancerous disease, and all people everywhere suffer for it.

McQuaig starts off noting the "significant shift in how Canada (now) operates in the world (having) moved from being a nation that has championed internationalism, the United Nations and UN peacekeeping to being a key prop" in George Bush's "war on terrorism." It belies Canada's now sullied reputation "as a fair arbiter and promoter of just causes (and as a) decent sort of country." She laments how the conservative Harper government aids the beleaguered White House, joined its war of aggression in Afghanistan, and continues distancing itself from its European allies "with whom we have a great deal in common."

Canada and the continent have "compelling similarities" shown in stronger social programs, "aspirations for greater social equality," and wanting "a world of peaceful co-existence among nations." In contrast, America continues growing more unequal, focusing instead on achieving unchallengeable economic, political and military supremacy in line with its imperial aims for world dominance. Nations daring to step out of line, risk getting flattened the way it's now happening to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Canada's tilt to the right began in earnest in the 1980s under conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and his relationship with Ronald Reagan. Corporate American elites fondly remember his December, 1984 appearance at the New York Economic Club where one writer said business heavyweights were "hanging from the rafters" to hear what he'd say. They weren't disappointed, and it's been mostly downhill since. Back then, the order of the day was mainly business, but it no longer would be as formerly usual with Mulroney delighting his listeners announcing "Canada is open for business." He meant US corporations were welcome up north, the two countries would work for greater economic integration, and America's sovereignty henceforth took precedence over its northern neighbor.

Before Stephen Harper took office in February, 2006, McQuaig notes Canada's foreign policies began tilting to the right under Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. He replaced Jean Chretien in December, 2003, stepping down after 10 years in office just ahead of the federal "sponsorship scandal" over improper use of tax dollars that doomed the Martin government after an explosive report about it was released in February, 2004. While still in office, Martin's April, 2005 defence policy review stressed the integration of Canada's military with the US. He also approved redeploying Canadian Afghan troops away from "peacekeeping" in Kabul to fighting Taliban forces in southeastern Helmand province. Based on Taliban gains, since its resurgence to control half the country, he and Harper may live to regret that decision.

McQuaig notes the absence of any evidence Canadians approve. In fact, polls consistently show they're "increasingly wary of our involvement in Afghanistan (and too close an alignment) with the United States." Their feeling may be heightened under Harper's "flag-pumping jingoism" aided by the country's dominant media championing the war effort much like their counterparts in the US. Public approval doesn't count in Canada any more than in the America. What George Bush wants he's mostly gotten so far, and Stephen Harper is quite willing to go along.

Anti-Canadians at Home and Abroad

Since taking office in February, 2006, Harper's been in lockstep with Washington, even abandoning Canada's traditional even-handedness on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of his first shameless acts was to cut off aid to the new democratically elected Hamas government. Showing his pro-Israeli bona fides, he failed to show concern for 50,000 Canadians in harm's way in Lebanon after Israel launched its summer war of aggression last year. Instead of calling for a ceasefire, Harper defended Israel calling their action "measured." In fact, it flattened half the country causing vast destruction, many hundreds of deaths, massive population displacement, and untold human misery and desperation still afflicting those in the conflict areas.

McQuaig notes Canadian internationalism evolved post-WW II. It showed in support for the UN, peacekeeping as opposed to militarism, the rule of law, distaste for imperialism, and by following a good neighbor policy toward all other countries. It was completely contrary to American belligerence, hardened under George Bush post-9/11, and now largely embraced by Stephen Harper just like Britain did it under Tony Blair. The UK leader is leaving office June 27 at the end of his prime ministership with an approval rating lower than George Bush's (at 26% in latest Newsweek poll nearly matching Richard Nixon's record low of 23%), maybe signaling what's ahead for Mr. Harper.

His government, Canada's elite, and its military support policies distinct from the public's. They want tax cuts for the rich, cuts in social spending, more privatizations and less regulation, increased military spending and closer ties to the US and its belligerent imperial agenda. That includes its policy of torture Canada's now complicit with as a partner in Bush's "war on terrorism" and how it's being waged. In contrast, the public "favours a more egalitarian agenda of public investment, universal social programs," and maintaining Canada's identity distinct from its southern neighbor. Most Canadians don't wish to emulate it, nor would they tolerate living under a system denying them the kinds of essential social benefits they now have even though they're eroding.

Their feelings are especially strong regarding their cherished national health medicare system. It's "founded on the principle that everyone should have access to health care (and) be treated equally," unlike in the US where everyone can get the best health care possible as long as they can pay for it. If not, too bad, and for 47 million Americans without health insurance it's really bad along with around another 40 million who are without it some portion of every year. For Canadians, that's unthinkable and wouldn't be tolerated.

It should be as unthinkable that the Harper government's so-called Clean Air Act of October, 2006 meant Ottawa's effective abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The Chretien government accepted and ratified it even though little was done under Liberal rule, making it easier to do less under Conservative leadership. That's in spite of near-universal agreement global warming is real and threatening the planet with an Armageddon future too grim to ignore. Canada's doing it under Harper just like Washington ignores it under George Bush.

A large part of the problem is both parties' support for industry efforts to triple oil sands production by 2015 to three million barrels daily. At that level, it's impossible meeting Kyoto targets, but Washington approves as most production is earmarked for US markets. It will feed America's insatiable energy appetite meaning planet earth's fate is someone else's problem, and maybe it will go away if we stop talking about it. And maybe not after we learn it's too late to matter. Canada's record is already disgraceful with one of the world's highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per person. Unless it acts to change current policy, it risks being called an international scofflaw, no different than its southern neighbor, except in degree.

The Harper government is also massively ramping up Canada's military spending he plans to increase over 50% above 2005 levels to $21.5 billion annually by 2010. That's in spite of the nation facing no threats and a public consensus favoring social spending. It's also contrary to Canada's traditionally eschewing militarism unlike the US with its long history of it since the nation's founding. It intensified post-WW II after it emerged preeminent and chose to pursue an imperial agenda for new markets, resources and exploitable cheap labor now endangering all planetary life by its recklessness. That's what Canada chose to partner with making it complicit with whatever happens henceforth.

Unsurprisingly, the Bush-Harper "war on terrorism" partnership now focuses on the Middle East where two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves are located (around 675 billion barrels) and the Central Asian Caspian basin with an estimated 270 billion barrels more plus one-eighth of the world's natural gas reserves. It doesn't matter that claimed "terrorism" is phony and "war" on it against "Islamofascists" threatening our freedoms unjustified. It only matters that people of both countries believe enough of the daily media-fed fiction so their governments can pursue what enough popular outrage never would allow. Anger and disillusionment in both countries are growing but haven't reached critical mass.

It's the job of the dominant media to prevent it getting there. So the beat goes on daily keeping it in check in both countries suppressing ugly truths and preaching notions of American exceptionalism. We're told it's unique in the world giving the US special moral authority to make its own rules, irrespective of long-standing international laws and norms it openly flouts as "quaint and obsolete." Because of its privileged status, it reigns as a self-styled "beacon of freedom" defending "democracy-US style," empowered to wage imperial wars using humanitarian intervention as cover for them. In the made-in-Washinton New World Order, America answers only to itself, the law is what the administration says it is, and, the message to all countries is "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Thus, Spaketh a modern-day Zarathustra, aka George Bush.

McQuaig continues explaining how Canadians are used to their own media, academic and corporate elites pandering to Washington rather than taking pride mostly in their own country. She notes the National Post and C.D. Howe Institute serve as "spiritual home(s) for neoconservatism" favoring the same kinds of policies as the US-based bastions of conservative extremism like the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution and Wall Street Journal editorial page that's hard right enough to make a Nazi blush. She mentioned C.D. Howe's sponsored lecture in late 2004 by former Canadian ambassador to the US, Allan Gotlieb.

He stressed Canada is a faded world power needing to accept the "transcendant (reality of) US power" and align with it. He said Canadians have a choice between "realism" and "romanticism." The former means accepting US preeminence, even when it violates international law. Further, Canadians must "liberate themselves from the belief that the UN is the sacred foundation of our foreign policy." According to Gotlieb, international law, embodied in the UN Charter, is obsolete and irrelevant including what constitutes legitimate armed intervention.

The "romantic" approach respecting international law and treaties, that are law for signatories, are "narcissistic" and "sanctimonious." Following this course will marginalize Canada reducing its influence. It can only be enhanced by aligning with Washington so as its power grows, so will Canada's opportunity to benefit from it. Advancing this kind of tortured logic guarantees Canada only trouble in light of George Bush's failed adventurism and US status as a world-class pariah mass public opinion condemns nearly everywhere. McQuaig says "it's hard (imagining) we'd be viewed with anything but contempt (for having chosen to "hold the bully's coat" as its) unctuous little sidekick." Not according to Gotlieb who scoffs at the idea of "remain(ing) committed to the values we hold....advance them to the world" regardless of what direction the US takes.

McQuaig compares her country's government, business and military elite to the 19th century notion of a "comprador class" serving foreign business class interests. Modern-day Canadian compradors serve as intermediary junior partners for corporate American giants especially as so much of Canada's economy is foreign owned or controlled - 28% of non-financial sectors with 20% by US companies in 2004. It's much higher in the key oil and gas sector at 45% overall and 33% in US hands. Further, of the 150 most powerful CEOs on the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), about one-fourth of them are with subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies and 18% of them are American.

McQuaig stresses these numbers are significant but not overwhelming. What's astonishing and overwhelming is Canada's growing dependence on the US market now accounting for 87% of all exports. It explains why Canadian business championed its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) "leap of faith" in 1988, NAFTA in 1994, and the new Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) founded in March, 2005 by the US, Canada and Mexico. SPP aims to advance a common security strategy veiling a scheme to destroy Canadian and Mexican sovereignty under a broader plan for a North American Union under US control.

The plan is to create a borderless North America removing barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly US ones. It also wants to guarantee America free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, of course. That will assure US energy security while denying Canada and Mexico preferential access to their own resources henceforth earmarked for US markets. Finally, it wants to create a fortress-North American security zone encompassing the whole continent under US control. The scheme, in short, is NAFTA on steroids combined with Pox Americana homeland security enforcement. It's the Bush administration's notion of "deep integration" or the "Big Idea" meaning we're boss, what we say goes, and no outliers will be tolerated.

Stephen Harper and Canadian business leaders endorse the plan. Canadian businesses will profit hugely leaving the country's energy needs ahead for future leaders to worry about. Today, it's only next quarter's earnings and political opportunism that matters. McQuaig notes how Canada's elites want to push the envelope further by giving more tax breaks to business and the rich while cutting social spending for greater global competitive opportunities. It's heading for the way it is in the US with a growing disparity between rich and poor economist Paul Krugman calls "unprecedented."

It led to a Citigroup Global Markets 2005 report describing the developed world divided in two blocs - an "egalitarian" one made up of Europe and Japan and "plutonomies" in the other one. There the US, UK and Canada are cited as members where wealthy elites get most of the benefits and the disparity between rich and poor keeps getting more extreme. McQuaig mentions journalists like Murray Dobbin saying resistance to the US empire is futile and promotes "pre-emptive surrender(ing)" to it. McQuaig thinks Canadians in their roots have other ideas being "neither anti-American nor self-adoring - just resistant to bullies, on both sides of the border." But given the state of the world and how Canada today is closely aligned with Washington, ordinary Canadians have their work cut out for themselves standing up for their rights.

How they've been cheated shows in a study released in March backing up Citigroup Global Markets 2005 findings. It was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) titled "The rich and the rest of us - The changing face of Canada's growing gap." It documented how Canada, like the US, is growing progressively more unequal with income and wealth gaps between the richest Canadians and all others widening dramatically. It's happening because all segments of Canada's political elite, even the New Democratic Party, have been complicit since the 1980s in reducing social services, attacking worker rights, cutting corporate taxes and supporting corporate interests, and redistributing wealth from the public to the privileged so that real, inflation adjusted, incomes for most Canadians have stagnated or fallen even while they work longer hours for it.

No More Girlie-Man Peacekeeping

Canada sunk from "peacekeeper" to partners in illegal aggression as McQuaig explains in this section. US General Thomas Metz stated it his way sounding the alarm that Islam was "hijacked by thugs" that could number in the millions posing the greatest of all threats the West faces - radical Islamic terrorism. It doesn't matter the threat is a hoax, and it's easy inventing this or any other one out of whole cloth by just repeating it enough.

Why now? The general explains that, too, noting America's energy security for its huge appetite. It needs one-fourth of world oil production for 5% of its population. And, by chance, two-thirds of proved oil reserves are in the Muslim Middle East and three-fourths of it in all Muslim states combined worldwide. How best to control it? McQuaig explains: by "old-style imperialism - plundering the resources of another country" using wars of aggression claimed for self-defense against "the scourge of (Islamic) terrorism."

McQuaig calls Canada's new Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, a "whole new kind of general - tough, brash, straight-talking....exuding a (new) kind of bravado." He eschews Canada's traditional "girlie-man peacekeeping" role opting instead for a "warrior ethic" and partnering with Washington to do it. Stephen Harper feels the same way, and so does defence minister Gordon O'Connor. They're on board together for ramping up military spending and getting knee-deep in America's "war on terrorism." All they needed was getting the Canadian public to go along that over the years showed a 90% enthusiastic endorsement for peacekeeping, not war-making.

McQuaig notes "Canada (for decades) was a star international (peacekeeping) performer, participating in virtually every UN mission (with) substantial numbers of troops." In recent years, however, "Canada has virtually disappeared from the UN peacekeeping scene" along with the West's declining involvement overall, preferring aggressive intervention instead through NATO or concocted "coalitions of the (coerced and/or bribed) willing."

Enter the dominant Western media functioning the way they do best. Michael Parenti calls it "inventing reality" while Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky call it "manufacturing consent." It means manipulating public opinion to go along with state and corporate policy, nearly always counter to the public interest. So we've had a warrior agenda post-9/11 invented out of whole cloth against "Islamic terrorism" threatening Western civilization unless stopped. It turns reality on its head portraying innocent Arab victims as victimizers and Western aggressors as targets acting only in self-defense.

Using CIA asset Osama bin Ladin as "Enemy Number One," illegal wars of aggression are portrayed as liberating ones. McQuaig calls the "arrogance of this notion stupefying" including Western indifference to the "collateral damage" of huge numbers of innocent lives lost. Most go unreported, while the few getting attention are dismissively called "unfortunate mistakes." Noted Canadian law professor Michael Mandel disagrees saying every death constitutes a grave international crime because the Iraq and Afghan wars are illegal aggression under international law.

No connection exists between 9/11 and those wars or that Saddam Hussein or the Taliban posed a threat to US or western security. Mandel also points out that prior to the October, 2001 and March, 2003 invasions, the Taliban and Saddam preferred negotiating with Washington but were rebuffed. Mandel stresses nations have an obligation to respect Article 33 in the UN Charter stating "the parties to any dispute shall, first of all, seek a solution by....peaceful means (through) negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration (or) judicial settlement."

America flouts international law choosing imperial wars of aggression Canada chose to partner with. Mandel explains nations doing this are guilty of "very serious crimes, in fact, supreme international crimes." But unlike at Nuremberg, he notes the "great big hole in the modern practice of international criminal law: its refusal to distinguish between legal and illegal war-making, between aggression and self-defence." It's "How America Gets Away With Murder" (the title of Mandel's important 2004 book) with the developed world barely blinking an eye. But then, who's brave enough to challenge the world's only superpower ready to lash out against any nation that dares. It's lots easier partnering in aggression, sharing in the spoils, or just staying silently complicit in the face of overwhelming criminality.

Canada chose the easier route, its dominant media's on board selling it, and it's no small factor that 87% of the country's exports go to US markets. That means Canada's economic well-being and security depends on America's willingness to accept them. McQuaig argues if long-standing trade and security ties obligate Canada to partner in Washington's wars, it's a "compelling argument for loosening (them), for developing more independent economic and military policies...." Otherwise, it amounts to committing war crimes "to protect our trade balance."

McQuaig wants Canada to renounce its warrior status and return to its traditional role of internationalism and peacekeeping as a member in good standing in the world community of nations. Her book touches on peacekeeping without going into what this writer covered in detail in a February, 2007 article called "UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism." It documented how often Blue Helmet peacekeepers end up creating more conflict than resolution or became counterproductive or ineffective. In the first instance, they became paramilitary enforcers or occupiers for an outside authority. In the second, they end up causing harm because they fail to ameliorate conditions on the ground ending up more a hindrance than a help. The record post-WW II makes the case.

The UN's first ever peacekeeping operation in 1948 was and still is its greatest failure and outlandish disgrace. It's the UNTSO one undertaken during Israel's so-called "War of Independence." The operation is still ongoing, peace was never achieved, the UN is still there playing no active role, and Israel gets away with mass murder with world approval by its complicity and silence.

Over five dozen peacekeeping operations have been undertaken since the first one with far too little or nothing to show for at least most of them, including where peacekeeping was most needed. The article couldn't cover them all so chose five other examples:

-- UNAMIR IN Rwanda

-- UNIMIK in Kosovo

-- MONUC in the Democratic Republic of Congo

-- UNMIS in Sudan, and

-- MINUSTAH in Haiti the article focused mainly on.

They all were and are dismal failures or worse.

No country on earth suffered more than Haiti from its unparalleled legacy of 500 years of colonial occupation, violence and exploitation. It's still ongoing today horrifically with Canada having an active role to its discredit and disgrace based on the facts on the ground. It was complicit along with France and the US in the February, 2004 coup d'etat ousting democratically elected President Jean-Betrand Aristide. His "crime" was wishing to serve his people, not the imperial master in Washington who engineered his forcible removal for the second time.

The UN Security Council voted in April, 2004 to establish MINUSTAH peacekeepers with Canada in an active role. From inception, its mission was flawed as it had no right being there in the first place. In principle, peacekeepers are deployed to keep peace and stability though seldom ever achieve it, in fact. In the case of Haiti, Blue Helmets were deployed for the first time in UN history enforcing a coup d'etat against a democratically-elected leader instead of staying out of it or backing his right to return to office. Today, Haitians are still afflicted by its US neighbor and world indifference to its suffering. Canada shares the guilt acting as a complicit agent in America's crimes of war and against the humanity of the Haitian people.

McQuaig stresses how Canadian elites want to move the country away from its traditional peacekeeping role opting instead for supporting American exceptionalism and its right to "impose a Pax Americana on the world" that's, in fact, a "Pox." As Washington flouts international laws and norms, "they want us to stand by, helpfully, holding the bully's coat."

All Opposed to Nuclear Disarmament, Please Stand Up

McQuaig highlights the difficulty of achieving nuclear disarmament by showing how hard it is eliminating land mines. They're mostly used as terror weapons inflicting most of their damage after conflicts end. So in spite of a Canada-led Ottawa Process agreement in 1997, it failed because the Clinton administration refused to sign it. It acceded to Pentagon obstructionism in spite of most of the world backing it including Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams and Princess Diana before her death. They both spearheaded the effort without success.

Canada was on the right side of this issue exercising what its lead proponent, Lloyd Axworthy, called "soft power." His efforts led to a December, 1997 signing ceremony accepted by two-thirds of the world's nations, an extraordinary achievement by any measure. And as Axworthy noted: "No one was threatened with bombing. No economic sanctions were imposed. No diplomatic muscles were flexed....Yet a significant change was achieved in the face of stiff opposition."

Using "soft power," Canada initially played a small role, Washington opposed, on nuclear disarmament. The Bush administration was so determined to thwart any efforts in this direction it refused even to allow any resolutions being placed on the agenda for discussion at the May, 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in Geneva. As a result, nothing was accomplished, and NPT was left in shambles with nuclear disarmament derailed.

Canada then led an effort circumventing the failed Geneva talks by going to the UN General Assembly with voting rights but no enforcement authority. Washington's opposition was intense enough, however, to get Ottawa to back down just hours ahead of the October 12 deadline. The Martin government acceded to Bush administration demands it do so, and "the moment had been lost." But it likely didn't matter as America under George Bush claims no need to ask permission from other nations to do whatever it wishes in the name of "national security" that can mean anything.

For many years, Canada was more even-handed than Washington on matters concerning Israel and Palestine. While fully supportive initially of a Jewish homeland and the rights of Israelis thereafter, Canadian leaders also respected Arab peoples and their interests. McQuaig noted by 1987, Canada had tilted heavily toward Israel, refused to support Arab UN resolutions condemning its crimes, and was ranked by observers as "second only to the US in support for Israel."

Now, under Stephen Harper, Canada's Middle East stance is as hard line as Washington's. It views everything in the region from the perspective of "Islamic terrorism" while ignoring the plight of Palestinians and the illegal occupation of their land. Harper also joined western nations cutting off all aid to the democratically elected Hamas government in 2006 and supported Israel's summer illegal aggression against Lebanon last year. He also supports the US-Israeli coup against the democratically elected Hamas government co-opting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to shamelessly participate in it. Ottawa and Washington approve of his defying Palestinian Basic Law and international law. He dissolved a duly constituted legitimate government, and replaced it with his own headed by illegitimate new prime minister Salam Fayyad, the pro-Western former IMF and World Bank official chosen by Washington and Jerusalem.

The Most Dangerous Man in the English-Speaking World

It's not George Bush, at least not in this section of McQuaig's book. It's former Canadian statesman, diplomat and prime minister (from 1963 - 1968) Lester Pearson, but not because he was a menace. After being elected to Parliament, Liberal Prime Minister St. Laurent appointed him minister of external affairs. In that capacity, he supported an internationalist approach to foreign policy highlighted by his determination to reduce Cold War tensions with Moscow and Peking. That stance so irritated American cold warriors, it got Chicago Tribune owner Colonel Robert McCormick to denounce him in 1953 as "the most dangerous man in the English-speaking world." It was because Pearson refused to cooperate with Senator Joe McCarthy's witch-hunt communist hearings. They produced nothing but destroyed lives and ruined careers, all to serve his own corrupted political agenda.

Pearson also thought NATO should be more than a military alliance to be able to deal with economic and social issues as well as defense. He wanted the alliance to encourage western ideas and free market alternatives to communism. Pearson was bold in ways unimaginable today in Ottawa or nearly anywhere in the West. He spoke out against Truman's threat to use nuclear weapons in Korea and challenged Washington when he thought its positions were dangerous and provocative.

In 1955, he became the first western prime minister to visit Moscow. He spoke out against colonialism and the rights of Third World nations to their own sovereignty. Overall, he supported internationalism, conciliation and peace including helping in 1956 create the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) following the Suez crisis that year. It was formed after Israel, Britain and France's war of aggression in October, 1956 against Egypt following President Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. For his efforts, Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. In his Nobel lecture, he stressed nations faced a choice - "peace or extinction." He continued saying nations cannot "be conditioned by the force and will of a unit, however powerful, but by the consensus of a group, which must one day include all states" and that predatory ones can't be tolerated.

McQuaig notes Pearson's "trickiest" relationship was with the US, even at a time Washington's footprint was less obtrusive and aggressive than now. He supported sitting administrations and their aim to contain communism. He even stood with Lyndon Johnson's military aggression in Vietnam "aiding South Vietnam....resist aggression." For that, he shares Canada's complicity in Washington's illegal war effort that had less to do with containing communism and more about America's imperial ambitions ramping up in those Cold War years following the Korean stalemate. For his actions, Pearson exhibited an "early example of Canada holding the bully's coat" even though he later publicly challenged the US role in Vietnam in a Temple University address.

Pearson supported peace and peacekeeping. His Nobel lecture cited "four faces of peace" - prosperity, power, diplomacy and people. As prime minister, peacekeeping was one of his four top priorities that later began to erode when pitted against the powerful Department of National Defence (DND) bureaucracy. By the early 1980s (long after Pearson's tenure), peacekeeping amounted to less than 0.5% of Canada's defense budget.

Earlier in the late 1970s, DND's aim to regain a war-fighting orientation got a boost from NATO that Canada participates in as one of its founding members. At its 1978 summit, member nations agreed to increase their military budgets 3% annually to offset a supposed Soviet threat. The real aim was to accede to defense contractors wanting bigger profits.

In the 1980s, Reagan administration militarism helped Canada's defence lobby "emerge as a potent force in Canadian politics." Most important in it is the Conference on Defence Associations (CDA) functioning as an "umbrella group representing military and retired military personnel as well as business, academic and professional types with military interests." CDA has enormous influence at the highest levels of government and key to it is the involvement of corporate Canada, including the nation's multi-billion dollar arms industry. CDA and weapons makers are closely tied to the Pentagon and America's defense industry. It's a natural fit as many large Canadian companies are US-owned including half of Canada's top 10 military contractors.

This assures Canadian government support for and involvement in America's war agenda that keeps profits flowing. Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney's election in 1984 provided and "energizing tonic for....Canada's defence lobby" as he supported a strong military, wanted Canada to be "open for business," and "accepted Canada's branch plant role in the US military-industrial complex...."

McQuaig noted the danger then that's now even greater. A stronger Canadian defense industry and military establishment favors not just diverting "the country's resources towards the military but ultimately" pressuring the country to use it for war-making. In the 1980s, the phony "Soviet menace" was portrayed as the threat while today it's "Islamic terrorists" involving Canada in Washington's imperial agenda of reckless foreign wars and occupation.

The Threat of Peace

The thought of it chills the marrow of the defense establishment in both countries. It happened in November, 1989 when East German authorities announced entering the West would be permitted, and the rest is history. The "wall" came down paving the way for German reunification, and peace broke out. Keeping it depended on a strong UN that wouldn't take long to prove mission impossible, but for a short interregnum, anything was possible. In 1992, UN Secretary-General Boutras Boutras-Ghali, at the behest of the Security Council, prepared an Agenda for Peace. It was an ambitious plan promoting diplomacy, peacekeeping, peace-making and peace-building.

In the early years of the nuclear arms race, there were various efforts to achieve disarmament and promote peace, some far-reaching and anchored by strong UN enforcement mechanisms. Despite the best efforts of peace visionaries with good intentions, it was all for naught. Distrust and a prevailing culture of militarism, especially in the US, trumped reason and sanity. But with the dissolution of the Soviet empire, there was never a better time to achieve what always failed earlier, if only the moment could be seized.

It wasn't, as McQuaig explains because "the opportunity (for peace) fell....to two men who....viewed the concept of 'disarmament' through world law' with ferocious contempt." They represented Republican extremist thinking resenting the notion of internationalism the UN represented. That body was to be rendered impotent under US control, even more than in the past, especially its agenda for social progress and peace-making.

With George HW Bush president, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and his undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz were tasked to shape America's post-Cold War strategy. Boutras-Ghali's Agenda for Peace was doomed with two hard line US high officials committed to America's imperial supremacy enforced by unchallengeable military power from the world's sole superpower. In George HW Bush's final year in office, Paul Wolfowitz and convicted Richard Cheney aide Lewis Libby drafted the scheme in their Defense Planning Guidance some call the Wolfowitz doctrine. It was so extreme, it was to be kept under wraps, but got leaked to the New York Times causing uproar enough for the elder Bush to shelve it until his son revived it in 2001.

In the early 1990s, public sentiment and high officials in Canada's Senate and House of Commons supported Boutros-Ghali's agenda embracing diplomacy, peacekeeping, peace-making and peace-building. The country's DND felt otherwise fearing promoting peace meant marginalizing the nation's military establishment. Wanting to remain a fighting force, the military was threatened with good reason. Strengthened by international support, Canadian NGOs established the Citizens' Inquiry into Peace and Security. They travelled the country holding public hearings. They drew large supportive crowds influential enough to get the Liberal Party to highlight peacekeeping in its Foreign Policy Handbook in May, 1993. Liberals were backed by some prominent academics, enlightened business leaders, and even some media commentators in the Canada 21 Council they formed to direct Canada's defence policy toward peace efforts.

It was a threatening time for the military establishment closing ranks to resist change harmful to its interests and vision of what a fighting force is for. DND fought back with a Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies (CSIS) watered-down counter-proposal, the Liberals bought it, and the party's 1994 defence review ensured no meaningful change from the status quo. The defence interests were served meaning public sentiment for peace efforts lost out to militarism. They were reinforced by a Committee of 13, composed of generals, hawkish academics and defense industry officials, countering the Canada 21 Council ending up on the losing side.

McQuaig speculates whether wars are an expression of human nature and inevitable consequence of human aggressiveness. She used an analogy to dueling, once considered a proper way to settle disputes. No longer, and anyone in civilized society trying it will end up afoul of the law. So why might not wars one day also be seen as an anachronism no longer practiced? She cites political philosopher Anatol Rapoport and political scientist John Mueller who think so, believing this practice only exists because we give it legitimacy. They point to other once widely accepted practices failing to survive over time - slavery (illegal everywhere but still widely practiced sub rosa even in the West), absolute hereditary monarchy, gladiatorial combat to the death, human sacrifice, burning heretics, segregation and Jim Crow laws, and public flogging among many others. Over time, customs changed and these practices ended, or mostly did.

So why not wars, and Europe post-WW II shows it's possible. The horror of two world wars on the continent combined with the emergence of super-weapons underscored what Einstein said half a century ago on future wars: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." European leaders apparently feel likewise as the continent was relatively peaceful for the past 62 years, with the Balkan wars a major exception, yet a localized one. In lieu of more wars, the European Union was formed and continues expanding. McQuaig strikes a hopeful note: Maybe "war among European nations lost its legitimacy."

For that to be true, however, requires these nations renounce wars everywhere, not just in their backyard or on their soil. With today's super-weapons, nations have the capacity to end what Noam Chomsky calls "biology's only experiment with higher intelligence." It can happen and once almost did during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. Forty years later, we learned only a miracle saved us because a Soviet submarine captain, Vasily Arkhipov, countermanded his order to fire nuclear-tipped torpedos when Russian submarines were attacked near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Imagine the consequences if he'd done it.

Today, we're back to square one with a group of American rogue leaders usurping the right to unilaterally use first strike nuclear weapons. They claim it's part of the nation's "imperial grand strategy" threatening everyone with extinction if they follow through - and don't bet they won't.

Back From the Abyss

McQuaig highlights the secret September 13, 2006 American, Canadian and Mexican elitist meeting in Banff, Alberta, Canada held to discuss the Bush administration's scheme for a North American Union. Such an eventuality would mean US North American hegemonic control. It would have enormous consequences on matters of political, economic, social and national security issues adversely affecting everyone on the continent except the privileged plotters benefitting at everyone else's expense.

McQuaig called the meeting "the ultimate expression of treachery" as two key themes were North American energy security and Canada-US military and security cooperation. These are US priorities, not Canadian ones, so Ottawa's acceding to American demands amounts to a national betrayal of the public trust. The fact that the meeting was secret only underscores the threat. That it was held at all shows the Harper government placed "holding the bully's coat (above) Canadian public interest in energy, military and security matters (crying) out for an independent Canadian course...."

Even worse, McQuaig notes, is that the centerpiece Alberta oil sands development part of a North American energy strategy undermines responsible Canadian global warming efforts. By fall, 2006, the Harper government proved no better than the Bush administration as a leading climate change obstructionist. Unlike European nations cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Canada's are rising and are now among the highest levels in the world per person. In the age of George Bush, Canada, under conservative leadership, is heading in the wrong direction on this and most other vital national and world issues. Included among them is being "complicit in some of the worst aspects of the US 'war on terrorism.' "

Torture is one of them, even of Canadian citizens, like the outrageous case of Maher Arar. He was detained at JFK Airport in September, 2002 on his way home, based on false Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) information about him US authorities had. It was the beginning of "delivering an innocent Canadian man into hell" because of Canada's role in Washington's "war on terrorism."

Arar was initially held in solitary confinement in the US for nearly two weeks, interrogated and denied access to legal help. He was falsely labeled an Al Queda member, "renditioned" to Syria where he was born, ignored by his government, held under appalling conditions, brutally tortured for a year before being released in October, 2003 and allowed to return home. A subsequent thorough investigation proved his innocence provoking outrage across the country. Canadian authorities treated him with contempt, even leaking false information to the media suggesting he was a terrorist and his claims about being tortured were untrue. That underscores Canada's moral depravity under Stephen Harper's leadership umbilically linked to the roguish Bush regime in Washington.

McQuaig stresses Harper's cooperation with Washington's "war on terrorism" "lies at the very heart of (his) agenda." Maintaining that close relationship with America on all matters important to Canada depends on it. Defiling the rights of its citizens and ignoring international law are minor matters by comparison and easily ignored as Canada sinks into the same moral swamp as America. It's partnered with Washington's war on the world, now directed at Islam, but pointing in all directions against any nation unwilling to become a subservient client state. Washington demands no less from all nations, and those refusing risk the Marines showing up followed by regime change. The lord and master of the universe tolerates no outliers.

Canada's on board under Stephen Harper, so it needn't worry. McQuaig's book, however, sounds the alarm all Canadians and Americans need to hear. At book's end, she stresses how "Powerful forces in this country are encouraging us to accept the notion of American exceptionalism and a role for Canada as adjunct to the US empire." She then quotes Rudyard Griffiths, Dominion Institute's executive director, saying "the country's most cherished myths seem to be melting away. If we are not what we were, what now defines us as a nation?"

McQuaig asks if Canadians will allow war-making to replace peacekeeping and will sacrifice its social state to pay for it. Her answer is no, that Canadians want none of neoconservatism, and instead want its political leaders returning to the nation's traditional values now abandoned. Her own views likely mirror public sentiment: "a vision committed to fair treatment and equality, to decency and to the rule of law." That's what being Canadian means for her. It's not serving "a helpmate's role, with a lucrative perch inside the US empire, obligingly assisting the bully as he goes about trying to subdue the world." She can take comfort knowing most Americans likely share her views and don't want that either.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Monday, June 25, 2007

"Demonstration" Government in Palestine

"Demonstration" Government in Palestine - by Stephen Lendman

In 1984 (a year of Orwellian significance), activist and media and social critic Edward Herman wrote one of his many important books titled "Demonstration Elections." In it, he analyzed the US-staged elections in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam and the 1982 one in El Salvador. In the book's Orwellian glossary of terms, he defined the process as "A circus held in a client state to assure the population of the home country that their intrusion is well received. The results are guaranteed by an adequate supply of bullets provided in advance (and freely used as necessary to achieve the desired outcome)."

This writer calls this ugly business "democracy-engineering, American-style" backed by force to win approval of a rigged process people would never accept another way. Noam Chomsky refers to the notion of "Keeping the Rabble in Line," the title of one of his many books. It can be through soft or hard methods to assure the public goes along with what governments want imposed.

Herman's main theme was that "elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election 'pacification' " aren't free at all but aim to get an occupying force's puppet choice accepted by the people it's installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create "stability." Herman defines that term, too, as "a political arrangement free of open warfare and satisfactory to our interests." By that he means the "rabble" is cowed, induced or pummelled into submission.

Enter the dominant media stepping up to support the effort as lead cheerleader for a process hard to sell without heavy lifting convincing that what government is doing is for the common good. Never mind it isn't and that destroying democracy and the will of the people to resist are the real aims. Herman's theme works the same way today, and it's in play now in occupied Palestine. The difference discussed below is that the US and Israel tried running a "demonstration election" there in January, 2006, but it failed. The people didn't cooperate and the "wrong" party won.

Imperial powers never accept defeat and attempted to subvert and crush the democratically elected Hamas government ever since because it's too democratic and refuses to be Israel's enforcer. So anti-Hamas efforts started off by labeling it a "terrorist" organization. That was followed by political and economic isolation, cutting off all essential aid, open conflict, and on June 17 brazenly installing an illegitimate "demonstration government" with Palestinian quisling President Mahmoud Abbas illegally dismissing the elected government and appointing an "emergency" one. All this is discussed in detail below.

Imposed Illegitimate "Demonstration" Government in Palestine

The beleaguered Palestinians are one of the world's most victimized peoples of justice delayed because it's been so long denied them. Long under the Ottomans, they then had to endure imperial British mandate rule after WW I until it ended in May, 1948. Ever since, they've suffered intolerable hardships under brutal Israeli oppression and illegal occupation with little outside support to end it.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 as a result and Yasser Arafat became its leader in 1969 to try. At first, it was militantly, then later through negotiation and international consensus. Nothing worked because a hard line Israeli - US nexus with Western and Arab state complicity prevented it. The predictable result was festering anger in the Palestinian Territories. They've been occupied since June, 1967 after Israel seized them in its long-planned six day war of aggression. The illegal occupation continues and Palestinian anger boiled over in two Intifadas, first in 1987, and ever since after Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque in September, 2000.

By January 25, 2006, Palestinians had enough of Fatah's institutionalized corruption and willingness to be Israel's enforcer under the quisling governments of Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas. They elected a dominant majority of Hamas members to Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) seats because they promised change and its candidates were untainted by corruption or willingness to serve as puppets of Israeli interests at the expense of their own people. They meant what they promised and proved it once in office, even offering to partner with Fatah at the outset in a spirit of unity. Under orders not to, Fatah refused. It guaranteed Israeli and Washington antagonism that erupted immediately once Hamas assumed office.

Palestinians endured a life and death survival struggle before the election and especially ever since, and they've been on their own doing it. After Hamas' election victory, all desperately needed outside aid was cut off, and they've been mercilessly persecuted under repressive Israeli rule. They've also been attacked viciously and relentlessly by the world's fourth most powerful military IDF forces and enlisted Fatah-led paramilitary death squads with only light and crude weapons and their spirit to endure and fight back.

Hamas - From Its Charter and How It Governs

Hamas in Arabic means courage and bravery. It's also an abbreviation of the Arabic words meaning Islamic Resistance Movement. It was formed in 1987 during the first Intifada and early on was supported by Israel to counter Arafat's PLO the Jewish state opposed at the time. Ever since, it's been an effective resistance movement against repression and occupation providing essential social services like medical clinics; education, including centers for women; free meals for children; financial and technical help to those whose homes Israelis destroyed; aid to refugees in the camps; and setting up youth and sports clubs.

It also has the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, an elite military wing, headed by Abu Abieda and other forces it needs for self-defense and law enforcement. Included among them is the "special operational force" known as the Executive Force (Tanfithya) used on the streets for policing and security.

Israel, Washington and the West call Hamas' political and social activities and its legitimate right to self-defense "terrorism" and tried to isolate and destroy its democratically elected government from birth. So far, they haven't succeeded, or are likely to, because Hamas' strongest assets are its will, readiness, and majority support from its people.

Hamas is a heterogenous democratic Islamic Resistance Movement allied with all resistance fighters for the purpose of liberating Palestine from Israeli oppression and occupation. Its method of choice is through negotiation and international consensus, not war or terrorism as falsely portrayed through the dominant media. But it states in its charter it will fight for its rights if they can't be gotten peacefully and rightfully blames Zionist Israel for its plight. They have plenty of evidence to prove it.

In its founding charter, it states it "draws its guidelines from Islam; derives from it its thinking, interpretations and views about existence, life and humanity; refers back to it for its conduct....adopts Islam as its way of life....Its ultimate goal is Islam, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Constitution....In the absence of Islam, conflict arises, oppression reigns, corruption is rampant and struggles and wars prevail....(The Movement) will do its utmost to....support....the weak, (and defend) all the oppressed.

(It) regards Nationalism (Wataniyya) as part....of the religious faith." Peace initiatives and international conferences are rejected if their intention is renunciation of Palestinian land. It rejects Zionist intentions to destroy Palestinian society, its values and "wipe out Islam." It describes itself as "a humane movement, which cares for human rights and is committed to the tolerance inherent in Islam as regards attitudes towards other religions. It is only hostile to those who are hostile towards it....(Under Islam) it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security" as long as other religions "desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region."

It believes "World Zionism and Imperial forces have been attempting....to push the Arab countries" to end conflict with Zionism "to isolate the Palestinian people." It states its members don't seek "fame....nor material gains, or social status....It will never set out against any Muslims....or non-Muslims who make peace with it." Overall, Hamas has moderate political and religious views in contrast to militant hard line ones by ruling Israeli governments and the current one in Washington and other past ones.

It wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians while Israel and the Bush administration pursue an agenda of conflict, imperial domination and firm intention to deny Palestinians all rights they're entitled to and the UN General Assembly adopted in December, 1948 in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This historic (non-binding) document guarantees them to everyone regardless of "race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (including) the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Hamas has always called for peace with Israel and is willing to negotiate on the basis of "hudnah" or temporary truce. It's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said Hamas was willing to end its struggle for the legitimate rights of Palestinian people "if the Zionists ended its occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians." As the elected Palestinian government, it declared a unilateral cease-fire with Israel, ended all suicide bombings, wants to negotiate, and is willing to recognize the Jewish state if Israel accepts and recognizes a Palestinian one. After being elected, it governed in good faith and agreed to a national unity government with Fatah to share power it democratically won to have alone. Israel, the US and West rejected all good faith efforts opting instead for a divide and conquer strategy.

A New Stage of Occupation for Palestinians

Israel, Washington and the West, pursued an aggressive agenda for months through armed conflict causing many deaths. From the start, Washington's point man has been Iran-Contra criminal and now deputy national security adviser, Elliot Abrams. Documents have surfaced in Middle East capitals with evidence of Abrams' role in an anti-Hamas "hard coup" strategy of violence and armed insurrection. They call for "maintain(ing) President Abbas and Fatah as the centre of (Palestinian) gravity....avoid accommodating (Hamas), undermine Hamas' political status (and) strengthen the Palestinian president's authority to be able to call and conduct early elections by autumn 2007."

The document also called for Mahmoud Abbas to reject Saudi Arabia's Mecca agreement leaving Hamas in charge. It further indicated $1.27 billion would be allocated to Abbas to add seven special battalions of 4700 new security forces to his 15,000 in place for "safeguard(ing) decisions such as dismissing the cabinet and forming an emergency government."

This all played out violently on Gaza streets leading up to Hamas' defeating opposition insurgent forces and seizing control of the Territory to establish law and order. As planned in Washington and Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Abbas then conspiratorially declared a "state of emergency." He dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and his national unity government replacing it with his own illegitimate "emergency" one.

It's illegally headed by newly appointed prime minister Salam Fayyad whose electoral list posted a 2.4% showing in the January, 2006 PLC elections Hamas won overwhelmingly. Fayyad's a pro-Western former IMF and World Bank official chosen by Washington and Jerusalem. His job is to do their bidding the way he served capital interests during his tenure at the international lending agencies. There he did it by forcing borrowers into debt slavery and their people into extreme poverty and deprivation for the sake of profit. That made him a western darling now promoted to enforce imperial domination on his people who want freedom and won't likely tolerate his portfolio to deny it to them.

Abbas, Fayyad and others in the "emergency" government are shamelessly partnered with Israel and Washington as their coup d'etat-installed puppets working against the interests of their own people. They control the West Bank alone with Hamas firmly in charge of Gaza unless or until Israel intervenes which now seems likely. It suggests a repeat of last summer's mass assault on the Territory and its sure to follow dreadful consequences for its near-defenseless people.

Plans to weaken and oust Hamas have been in place for months with Washington supplying the Abbas leadership tens of millions of dollars in aid and weapons. It's gone to paramilitary militia death squad groups like Gaza-based Fatah warlord and another Israeli-Western darling Mohammed Dahlan (Fatah's security chief now in the West Bank) and his "Preventative Security Force." It's part of a conspiratorial coup d'etat effort headed by traitorous Palestinians on the take for their own gain. Abbas is their nominal leader. Dahlan has the muscle and real power as it chief enforcer. All newly appointed members of Abbas' sham "emergency government" share equal guilt. They're junior quislings serving their puppet-masters in Jerusalem and Washington, but events are just beginning, the struggle is far from over, and its outcome very much uncertain.

Money and weapons will continue flowing into the West Bank, and from what Hamas already seized in a Gaza stash it found, it should be plenty. Unncovered were huge amounts of mounted machine guns, assault rifles, ammunition, armored personnel carriers, jeeps, armored cars and trucks, military-sized bulldozers, water cannon-dispersing trucks, large quantities of munitions including rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, explosives and various other supplies and equipment.

In total, it appears enough to equip a small army of fighters and may be worth as much as $400 million. It's sure to be replaced so Fatah traitors are heavily armed to continue fighting Israel's proxy war and acting as its West Bank enforcer against their own people. They almost certainly will resist with Hamas leading them courageously. It means Fatah's hold on power is tenuous at best and Abbas' fate equally shaky. His shameless act may in the end cost him all credibility, his job, and eventually make him liable to be held to account for his open betrayal of his own people.

Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has no intention stepping down and responded at length live on Al-Jazeera rejecting Abbas' "hasty" moves saying 96% of Palestinians support a unity government as the best chance for peace and security. He affirmed his democratically elected government would continue functioning and maintain law and order. He also called for an end to conflict and a general amnesty. He stressed his fight is not with Fatah, but only with rogue traitorous elements in it like the dominant one headed by warlord Dahlan firmly doing Israel and Washington's bidding.

He explained Hamas' takeover was no coup and only a last resort attempt to end lawlessness, conflict and a Dahlan-led conspiracy against all Palestinians. He spoke of conciliation, unity, and conflict resolution to heal divisions in contrast to Abbas' traitorous behavior as Israel and Washington's pawn. He followed Israeli and Washington-dictated orders responding by denouncing Hamas as terrorists, refusing to negotiate, and saying he'll (illegally as explained below) order new elections that will exclude Hamas.

At this stage, Hamas' task is daunting as Haaretz reports Israeli Labor Party Chairman, former prime minister, and new Olmert government defense minister Ehud Barak, plans to launch a large-scale military operation on Gaza in weeks. It will include 20,000 troops and an air assault aimed at destroying Hamas' military capabilities quickly. Haaretz cited a close Barak aide saying Israel won't allow a "Hamastan" in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and an attack on it is certain. Air attacks are now ongoing daily, border crossings are closed, and Israel cancelled Gaza's commercial customs code. That cuts off essential supplies like food and medicines from entering the territory. Israel is now increasing its collective punishment against 1.4 million Palestinians already enduring unbearable hardships in what's considered the world's largest open-air prison with a population density three times that of Manhattan.

Israeli-Washington-Directed Fatah Declared Coup Illegal Under Palestinian Law

Virginia Tilley is a South African-based political science professor. On June 18, her article appeared on The Electronic Intifada titled "Whose Coup, Exactly?" It documented in detail that according to the Basic Law of Palestine, serving as the PA's constitution, "Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances" limiting the power of the presidency. He "badly trashed numerous provisions" in it "with full US and Israeli support." The Basic Law states:

-- Under Article 45, the President can remove a Prime Minister but can only appoint a new one from the majority party - Hamas.

-- Under Article 83, if the Prime Minister is removed, the serving (Hamas-led) Cabinet is to govern until the (Hamas-led) Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) appoints a new one.

-- Only the PLC has authority to confirm a new Prime Minister and Cabinet.

-- Under Article 43, in emergencies, the President can rule by decree subject to all decrees approved by the PLC.

-- Under Article 113, in emergencies, the President cannot suspend the PLC.

-- The Basic Law gives the President no power to call for early elections.

-- No provision in the Basic Law authorizes an "emergency government."

Conclusion: Abbas' actions constitute a lawless coup d'etat usurpation of power, or as Tilley puts it: "The (Fatah) Fayyad government is the step-child of an extra-legal process with no democratic mandate. The whole manoeuvre is not precisely a palace coup," but enough like one, in fact, to be one. She also notes "the diplomatic landscape is now in utter disarray" with the extra-legal Fayyad government only a "facsimile" of the real thing.

So far, its illegitimate creation hardly seems to matter to Israel, the US and European Union shamelessly flouting Palestinian and international law. They're ending their political and economic PA West Bank (only) embargo to bolster Fatah and Abbas while continuing to isolate Hamas in Gaza. It's an outrageous effort rewarding lawlessness and continuing to crush democratic movements when they become too democratic as Hamas did. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri denounced it accusing the West of hypocrisy. He noted Hamas was democratically elected and added "This confirms the falseness of the international community's support for democracy."

From Dublin, Ireland at a human rights conference, former President Jimmy Carter denounced it as well. He accused the US, EU and Israel of harming and seeking to divide the Palestinian people by aiding Abbas in the West Bank while withholding similar help to Hamas in Gaza. Carter stressed Hamas is entitled to be the ruling Palestinian government because it was democratically elected. Representatives from his Carter Center observed the election and judged it free, open and fair. He urged the international community to work toward reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah but sees nothing being done to do it.

He condemned US, EU and Israeli efforts to undermine Hamas as "criminal." He continued saying "The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people of Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah." He then added Washington and others supplied Fatah security forces with superior weapons aimed at "conquer(ing) Hamas in Gaza, but the plan failed because of Hamas' "superior skills and discipline."

A Hopeful Look Ahead

Everything happening in the Middle East in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan in Central Asia is interconnected. In all of it, Washington is partnered with Israel and the EU aiming to subdue the people in both regions, control their resources, and rule over this vast area in colonial-occupier fashion directly on the ground or ideally with puppet-installed governments. Washington leads the effort and intends taking the lion share of what it can plunder provided things go as planned. The EU is tagging along led by Britain and Israel in key roles with the Jewish state getting huge amounts of funding to do it. According to a James Tucker American Free Press May, 2003 report it was at a level of $10 billion a year then with Israel wanting it upped to $12 billion.

This figure came from a Library of Congress "briefing paper" titled "Israel: US Foreign Assistance." It listed categories including direct funding aid, huge amounts in loans and loan guarantees, military aid, R & D help, and considerably more that noted academic and author James Petras documented in his important 2006 book "The Power of Israel in the United States." In total, Israel, with 5.2 million people in 2005, about the size of a large US or other city, receives more in total aid in all forms than all other nations in the world combined. It uses it to seize Palestinian lands for Jewish resettlement, build separation/apartheid walls, and wage illegal wars of aggression in pursuit of its own imperial agenda for regional dominance as an adjunct to its US partner and very generous funder.

Despite considerable effort and huge amounts of financial and other resources employed, US and Israeli imperial adventurism hasn't fared too well giving reason to hope more of it will turn out as badly for both nations. Palestinians have endured everything Israel's thrown at it for six repressive decades. In spite of it, they're still holding up maintaining their courageous struggle for equity, justice and a free and independent state they intend one day to have and likely will regardless of Israel's determination to prevent it. History is on their side.

In just the last century, nations around the world struggled for the same rights and prevailed, though for many it took decades or longer and what was gained was far from perfect or even unacceptable too often like in South Africa. The end of apartheid there was replaced by neoliberal "Thatcherism" resulting in greater poverty and hardship for the poor majority than in the earlier era. However, progress usually comes slowly and rarely without setbacks or disappointments. The point is it can come when people seeking it never stop believing it will or working for it until it does. Palestinians have been doing it since 1948, and one day they'll have what they and all others deserve everywhere, their own state in which to live free from foreign occupation secure at last on their own land.

An early hopeful sign was reported in Haaretz by correspondent Shlomo Shamir June 22. He noted in spite of US, British and French pressure (with new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's shameless backing) for a Security Council declaration of confidence in the Abbas government, it was withdrawn before its drafting stage because of strong protests against it by Russia, South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar. These countries objected to anti-Hamas policies and attempts to characterize it as a terror organization and isolate it. In addition, Russia and South Africa questioned the emergency government's legitimacy arguing instead for a unity government as the solution to the conflict in occupied Palestine.

It's a small, maybe temporary victory, but important one nonetheless. It shows mighty America, Israel and the EU can be challenged and forced to back down giving Palestinian people hope more victories will follow and in time the one they want above all others. With faith, courage, patience and redoubtable will, one day they'll prevail, their Nakba will have ended, and their right to live freely on their own land will be affirmed and recognized.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Record of the Newspaper of Record

The Record of the Newspaper of Record - by Stephen Lendman

Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda.

Singlehandedly, the Times destroys "The Myth of the Liberal Media" that's also the title of Edward Herman's 1999 book on "the illiberal media," the market system, and what passes for democracy in America Michael Parenti calls "Democracy For the Few," in his book with that title out earlier this year in its 8th edition.

In his book, Herman writes about the "propaganda model" he and Noam Chomsky introduced and developed 11 years earlier in their landmark book titled "Manufacturing Consent." They explained how the dominant media use this technique to program the public mind to go along with whatever agenda best serves wealth and power interests. So imperial wars of aggression are portrayed as liberating ones, humanitarian intervention, and spreading democracy to nations without any. Never mind they're really for new markets, resources like oil, and cheap exploitable labor paid for with public tax dollars diverted from essential social needs.

In "The Myth of the Liberal Media," Herman explains the "propaganda model" focuses on "the inequality of wealth and power" and how those with most of it can "filter out the news to print, marginalize dissent (and assure) government and dominant private interests" control the message and get it to the public. It's done through a set of "filters" removing what's to be suppressed and "leaving only the cleansed (acceptable) residue fit to print" or broadcast electronically. Parenti's "Democracy For the Few" is democracy-US style the rest of us are stuck with.

Books have been written on how, going back decades, the New York Times betrayed the public trust serving elitist interests alone. It plays the lead and most influential media role disseminating state and corporate propaganda to the nation and world. In terms of media clout, the Times is unmatched with its prominent front page being what media critic Norman Solomon calls "the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA" - more accurately, anywhere.

Examples of Times duplicity are endless showing up every day on its pages. The shameless Judith Miller saga is just the latest episode of how bad they can get, but she had her predecessors, and the beat goes on since she left in disgrace. Through the years, the Times never met a US war of aggression it didn't love and support. It was never bothered by CIA's functioning as a global Mafia-style hit squad/training headquarters ousting democratically elected governments, assassinating foreign heads of state and key officials, propping up friendly dictators, funding and training secret paramilitary armies and death squads, and now snatching individuals for "extraordinary rendition" to torture-prison hellholes, some run by the agency and all taking orders from it.

CIA, as Chalmers Johnson notes, is a state within a state functioning as the president's unaccountable private army with unchecked powers and a near-limitless off-the-books secret budget we now know tops $44 billion annually. It menaces democratic rule, threatens the Republic's survival and makes any notion of a free society impossible as long as this agency exists. Not a problem at New York Times. It worked closely with CIA since the 1950s allowing some of its foreign correspondents to be Agency assets or agents. It no doubt still does.

The Times is also unbothered by social decay at home, an unprecedented wealth disparity, an administration mocking the rule of law, a de facto one party state with two wings and a president usurping "unitary executive" powers claiming the law is what he says it is making him a dictator. It practically reveres the cesspool of corrupted incestuous ties between government and business, mocking any notion of democracy of, for, or by the people. That's the state of the nation's "liberal media" headquartered in the Times building in New York.

The New York Times v. Hugo Chavez

This article focuses on one example of Times duplicity among many other prominent ones equally sinister and disturbing - its venomous agitprop targeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this writer calls the leading model democratic leader on the planet even though he's not perfect, nor is anyone else. That's why after "Islamofascist terrorists" he's practically "enemy number one" on the Times hit list and Washington's. Besides Venezuela being oil rich, Chavez is the greatest of all threats the US faces - a good example that's spreading. His governance shows how real social democracy works exposing the fake American kind.

That's intolerable to the masters of the universe and their leading media proponent, the New York Times. It always plays the lead media role keeping the world safe for wealth and power. So on June 6, it hauled out former Peruvian president and first ever indigenous Andean one in the country's history - Alejandro Toledo (2001 - 2006). His electoral campaign promised a populist vision for Peruvians, to create new jobs, address dire social needs of the country's poor, and end years of corruption and hard line rule under Alberto Fujimori, now a wanted man on charges of corruption and human rights abuses.

Toledo was little better, failing on all counts pushing the same repressive neoliberal policies he was elected to end. He was in tow with Washington's agenda of privatizations, deregulation, IMF/World Bank diktats, debt service, and overall contempt for the essential social needs of his people. He was also tainted with corruption, and during his tenure violence was used against protest demonstrators, criminal suspects in prisons were beaten and tortured, and dozens of journalists were threatened or attacked for criticizing local politicians or him.

No problem for the New York Times that published his June 6 op ed piece titled "Silence = Despotism." In it, he said "Political democracy will take root in Latin America only when it is accompanied by economic and social democracy (under) political systems....free and fair for all." As Peru's president, he thwarted efforts to do what he now says he champions. Toledo continued saying "our citizens" must be heard, and if free speech is silenced in one country, "silence could spread to other nations" pointing his hypocritical finger squarely at Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelans, he says, "are in the streets (today) confronting repressions. Courageous students raise the flags of freedom, refusing to mortgage their future by remaining silent." He quickly gets to the point citing Hugo Chavez's refusal to renew RCTV's Channel 2 VHF license saying "This is about more than one TV station. President Chavez has become a destabilizing figure throughout the hemisphere because he feels he can silence anyone with opposing thoughts (by) silencing them through repression or government decrees." He then called on other Latin American leaders to confront "authoritarianism" and "stand up for continent-wide solidarity" citing his own presidency and how "it never occurred to (him) to silence (critical) media outlets (or) nationalize them."

Toledo's tainted record as president belies his shameless pieties on the Times op ed page. He did more than try silencing critics. He stayed mute when they were attacked or when two or more of them were killed. The New York Times knows his record even though it suppressed the worst of it while he was in office. Yet it gave him prominent space to denounce Hugo Chavez's social democracy and legal right not to renew the operating license of a TV channel for its repeated illegal seditious acts. RCTV was a serial abuser of its right to use the public airwaves. It was then guilty of supporting and being complicit with efforts to foment insurrection to overthrow Venezuela's democratically elected government.

Toledo ignored this saying, as Peru's president, he was "always....respectful of opinions" differing from his own. He would "never agree with those who prefer silence instead of dissonant voices. Those....who embrace liberty and democracy must stand ready to work in solidarity with the Venezuelan people." He failed to say which ones he meant, surely not the 70% or more backing Chavez. And by failing to denounce RCTV's lawlessness, he showed he condoned it. He also forgot his successor as president, Alan Garcia, lawlessly silenced two Peruvian TV stations and three radio stations, apparently for supporting a lawful strike Garcia opposes.

The New York Times has an ugly record bashing Hugo Chavez since he was elected with a mandate to make participatory social democracy the cornerstone of his presidency. That's anathema to Washington and its chief media ally, the New York Times. Since 1999 when he took office, it hammered Chavez with accusations of opposing the US-sponsored Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) without explaining it would sell out to big capital at the expense of his people if adopted.

Following his election in December, 1998, Times Latin American reporter Larry Roher wrote: (Latin American) presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (worried about the) specter....the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)."

The Times later denounced him for using petrodollars for foreign aid to neighbors, equating promoting solidarity, cooperation and respecting other nations' sovereignty with subversion and buying influence. It criticized his raising royalties and taxes on foreign investors, never explaining it was to end their longtime preferential treatment making them pay their fair share as they should. It bashed him for wanting his own people to benefit most from their own resources, not predatory oil and other foreign investors the way it was before Chavez took office. No longer, and that can't be tolerated in Washington or on the pages of the New York Times.

When state oil company PDVSA became majority shareholder with foreign investors May 1 with a minimum 60% ownership in four Orinoco River basin oil projects, the Times savaged Chavez. It condemned his "revolutionary flourish (and his) ambitious (plan to) wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies (with a) showdown (ahead for these) coveted energy resources...." Unmentioned was these resources belong to the Venezuelan people. The Times also accuses Chavez of allowing "politics and ideology" to drive US-Venezuelan confrontation "to limit American influence around the world, starting in Venezuela's oil fields."

It calls him "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro." It savored the 2002 aborted two day coup ousting him calling it a "resignation" and that Venezuela "no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator." It reported he "stepped down (and was replaced by (a) respected business leader" (Pedro Carmona - president of Fedecamaras, the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce).

Unmentioned was that Carmona was hand-picked in Washington and by Venezuelan oligarchs to do their bidding at the expense of the people. He proved his bona fides by suspending the democratically elected members of the National Assembly and crushing Bolivarian Revolutionary Constitutional reforms, quickly restored once Chavez was reinstated in office. Carmona fled to Colombia seeking political asylum from where Venezuela's Supreme Court now wants him extradited on charges of civil rebellion. Unmentioned also was that the Times had to dismiss one of its Venezuelan reporters, Francisco Toro, in January, 2003 when Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) revealed he was an anti-Chavista activist masquerading as an objective journalist.

Back to the present, the Times claims Chavez is moving to consolidate his dictatorial powers by shuttering RCTV's Channel 2 and silencing his critics. It portrays him as a Latin American strongman waging class warfare with socialist rhetoric. It asks how long Venezuelans will put up with the destruction of their democratic freedoms? It points to "evidence Mr. Chavez's definition of the enemy has been enlarged to include news media outlets....critical of his government....extending his control beyond political institutions (alone)." This marks a "shift from the early years of his presidency, when he (also) faced vitriolic criticism" from the media.

The Times speculates how brutal he'll become silencing critics and quelling protests wondering if he'll use proxies to do it. It then questions whether Chavez overstepped enough to marshall large-scale opposition to him to push him past the tipping point that will inevitably lead to his loss of credibility and power. Might this be a thinly disguished Times effort to create the reality it supports by wishing for it through the power of suggestion.

Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein is on board to make it happen. He claims, with no substantiation, Chavez "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions." Turn this on its head to know the truth Lowenstein won't report - that Chavez militarized nothing. He put his underutilized military to work implementing Venezuela's Plan Bolivar 2000 constructing housing for the poor, building roads, conducting mass vaccinations, and overall serving people needs, not invading and occupying other countries and threatening to flatten other "uncooperative" ones.

Venezuela's courts function independently of the democratically elected President and National Assembly. The media is the freest and most open in the region and the world with most of it corporate owned as it is nearly everywhere. Further, business is booming enough to get the Financial Times to say bankers were having "a party," and the country never had a functioning democracy until Hugo Chavez made it flourish there.

Times Venezuelan reporter Simon Romero is little better than Lowenstein or others sending back agitprop disguised as real journalism in his Venezuelan coverage, including RCTV closure street protests. He made events on Caracas streets sound almost like a one-sided uprising of protesters against Chavez with "images of policemen with guns drawn" intimidating them. He highlighted Chavez's critics claiming "the move to allow RCTV's license to expire amounts to a stifling of dissent in the news media." He quoted Elisa Parejo, one of RCTV's first soap opera stars, saying "What we're living in Venezuela is a monstrosity. It is a dictatorship."

He quoted right wing daily newspaper El Nacional as well portraying the RCTV decision as "the end of pluralism" in the country. Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the corporate media-controlled Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), was also cited saying Chavez wants to "standardize the right to information (indicating) a very bleak outlook for the whole hemisphere." He invented corporate-cooked polling numbers showing "most Venezuelans oppose Mr. Chavez's decision not to renew RCTV's license." In fact, the opposite is true and street demonstrators for and against RCTV's shuttering proved it. Venezuelans supporting Chavez dwarfed the opposition many times over. But you won't find Romero or any other Times correspondent reporting that. If any try doing it, they'll end up doing obits as their future beat.

Back in February, Romero was at it earlier. Then, he hyped Venezuela's arms spending making it sound like Chavez threatened regional stability and was preparing to bomb or invade Miami. Romero's incendiary headline read "Venezuela Spending on Arms Soars to World's Top Ranks." It began saying "Venezuela's arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America's largest weapons buyer" with suggestive comparisons to Iran. The report revealed this information came from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) making that unreliable source alone reason to question its accuracy and what's behind it.

The figure quoted refers only to what Venezuela spends on arms, not its total military spending. Unmentioned was that the country's total military spending is half of Agentina's, less than one-third of Colombia's, and one-twelfth of Brazil's according to Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation figures ranking Venezuela 63rd in the world in military spending. The Center also reported Venezuela's 2004 military budget at $1.1 billion making Romero's $4 billion DIA figure phony and a spurious attempt to portray Chavez as a regional threat needing to be counteracted. At that level, he's also outspent by the Pentagon 500 to one, or lots more depending on how US military spending and homeland security readiness are calculated, including all their unreported or hidden costs.

On June 12, Venezuela Analysis.com reported, in an article by "Oil Wars," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicated Venezuela's military spending for 2006 was $1.9 billion. The report's author voiced skepticism so compared this number to Venezuela's Ministry of Defense expenditures for that year in its "Memoria y Cuenta." It's figure was $1,977,179,179 thousand Bolivars that converted to US dollars comes to $919,618,000. To that must be added another $1.09 billion the Ministry of Defense got from Venezuela's FONDEN, or development fund. Adding both numbers together, of course, shows the country's 2006 military spending at $2 billion.

Based on The Independent Institute's Senior Fellow Robert Higgs' calculation of US defense spending for FY 2006 of $934.9 billion, it still means the Pentagon outspends Venezuela's military by around 500 to one. Higgs includes the separate budgets for the Department of Defense, Energy, State, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Treasury's Military Retirement Fund, other smaller defense-related budgets plus net interest paid attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays. Even then, he omitted off-the-books budgets and secret intelligence ones for CIA and NSA.

Back to the Times' Romero and it's clear his reporting smells the same as Iraq's WMDs and Iran's legal commercial nuclear program being threat enough to warrant sanctions and a US military response. Romero is right in step with Bush administration World Bank president neocon nominee Robert Zoellick. He took aim at Hugo Chavez from Mexico City June 16 with warnings Venezuela is "a country where economic problems are mounting, and as we're seeing on the political side it's not moving in a healthy direction."

Romero reports similar agitprop and did it May 17 in his article titled "Clash of Hope and Fear as Venezuela Seizes Land." He began saying "The squatters arrive before dawn with machetes and rifles, surround the well-ordered rows of sugar cane and threaten to kill anyone who interferes. Then they light a match to the crops and declare the land their own." He continued saying "Mr. Chavez is carrying out what may become the largest forced land redistribution in Venezuela's history, building utopian farming villages for squatters, lavishing money on new cooperatives and sending army commando units to supervise seized estates in six states."

Violence has accompanied seizures, says Romero, "with more than 160 peasants killed by hired gunmen in Venezuela (and) Eight landowners have also been killed...." Since Chavez took office, there have been peasant and other violent deaths, but most of them have been at the hands of US-Colombian government financed paramilitary death squads operating in Venezuela.

Romero stays clear of this while making his rhetoric sound like an armed insurrection is underway in Venezuela forcibly and illegally seizing land from its rightful owners. What's going on, in fact, is quite different that can only be touched on briefly to explain. Hugo Chavez first announced his "Return to the Countryside" plan under the Law on Land and Agricultural Development in November, 2001. The law set limits on landholding size; taxed unused property; aimed to redistribute unused, mainly government-owned land to peasant families and cooperatives; and expropriate uncultivated, unused land from large private owners compensating them at fair market value. So, in fact, the government seizes nothing. It buys unused land from large estates and pays for it so landless peasants can have and use it productively for the first time ever benefitting everyone equitably.

Nowhere in his article did Romero explain this although he did acknowledge prior to 2002, "an estimated 5 per cent of the population owned 80 per cent of the country's private land." By omitting what was most important to include, Romero's report distorted the truth enough to assure his readers never get it from him. Nor do they from any other Times correspondent when facts conflict with imperial interests. That's what we've come to expect from the "newspaper of record" never letting truth interfere with serving wealth and power interests that includes lying for them. Shameless reporting on Venezuela under Hugo Chavez is one of many dozens of examples of Times duplicity and disservice to its readers going back decades.

Former Times journalist John Hess denounced it his way: I "never saw a foreign intervention that the Times did not support, never saw a fare....rent....or utility increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don't get me started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?" And why should anyone think its so-called news and information is anything more than propaganda for the imperial interests it serves?

Robert McChesney and Mark Weisbrot explained it well in their June 1 CommonDreams.org article on "Venezuela and the Media" saying: "the US media coverage (with NYT in the lead) of Venezuela's RCTV controversy (and most everything else) says more about the deficiencies of our own news media than it does about Venezuela. It demonstrates again (it's more) willing to carry water for Washington (and the corporate interests it serves) than to ascertain and report the truth of the matter." At the Times, truth is always the first casualty, but especially when the nation's at war.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Reviewing Michel Chossudovsky's America's War on Terrorism

Reviewing Michel Chossudovsky's "America's 'War on Terrorism'"

by Stephen Lendman

Global Research, June 19, 2007
rense.com - 2007-06-18

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Chossudovsky is a noted academic, author, activist and relentless researcher concentrating on America's imperial crusade to control planet earth for its markets, resources and cheap exploitable labor. He's a Canadian economist by profession having taught at the University of Ottawa as well as at academic institutions in Western Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. In addition, he's been an economic adviser to developing countries' governments and a consultant for many international organizations, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, International Labour Organization (ILO), and World Health Organization (WHO). He's also the director of the Centre for Research on Globalization and editor of its web site, Global Research.ca.

"America's 'War on Terrorism'" - An Overview



Chossudovsky's book is a greatly expanded version of his 2002 book titled, "War and Globalization: The Truth behind September 11." The current newly titled 2005 edition (post-9/11 and the 2003 Iraq invasion and occupation) includes 12 new chapters with those in the original edition updated. The author states the book's purpose is "to refute the official narrative and reveal - using detailed evidence and documentation (not speculation based on opinion alone)" - the true nature of America's "war on terrorism," that's as relevant now as when the book was first published.

Chossudovsky calls it a complete fabrication "based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden (from a cave in Afghanistan and hospital bed in Pakistan) outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus." He calls it, instead, what, in fact, it is - a pretext for permanent "New World Order" wars of conquest serving the interests of Wall Street and the financial community, the US military-industrial complex, Big Oil, and all other corporate interests profiting hugely from a massive scheme harming the public interest, in the name of protecting it, and potentially all humanity unless it's stopped in time.

On the morning of 9/11, the Bush administration didn't miss a beat telling the world Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon meaning Osama bin Laden was the main culprit - case closed without even the benefit of a forensic and intelligence analysis piecing together all potential helpful information. There was no need to because, as Chossudovsky explained, "That same (9/11) evening at 9:30 pm, a 'War Cabinet' was formed integrated by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. At 11:00PM, at the end of that historic (White House) meeting, the 'War on Terrorism' was officially launched," and the rest is history.

Chossudovsky continued "The decision was announced (straightaway) to wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11 attacks" with news headlines the next day asserting, with certainty, "state sponsorship" responsibility for the attacks connected to them. The dominant media, in lockstep, called for military retaliation against Afghanistan even though no evidence proved the Taliban government responsible, because, in fact, it was not and we knew it.

Four weeks later on October 7, a long-planned war of illegal aggression began, Afghanistan was bombed and then invaded by US forces working in partnership with their new allies - the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or so-called Northern Alliance "warlords." Their earlier repressive rule was so extreme, it gave rise to the Taliban in the first place and has now made them resurgent.

Chossudovsky further explained that the public doesn't "realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks." This one, like all others, was months in the making needing only what former CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks called a "terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event" to arouse enough public anger for the Bush administration to launch it after declaring their "war on terrorism." Chossudovsky, through thorough and exhausting research, exposed it as a fraud.

He's been on top of the story ever since uncovering the "myth of an 'outside enemy' and the threat of 'Islamic terrorists' (that became) the cornerstone (and core justification) of the Bush administration's military doctrine." It allowed Washington to wage permanent aggressive wars beginning with Afghanistan and Iraq, to ignore international law, and to "repeal civil liberties and constitutional government" through repression laws like the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts. A key objective throughout has, and continues to be, Washington's quest to control the world's energy supplies, primarily oil, starting in the Middle East where two-thirds of known reserves are located.

Toward that end, the Bush administration created a fictitious "outside enemy" threat without which no "war on terrorism" could exist, and no foreign wars could be waged. Chossudovsky exposed the linchpin of the whole scheme. He uncovered evidence that Al Queda "was a creation of the CIA going back to the Soviet-Afghan war" era, and that in the 1990s Washington "consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at the same time placing him on the FBI's 'most wanted list' as the World's foremost terrorist." He explained that the CIA (since the 1980s and earlier) actively supports international terrorism covertly, and that on September 10, 2001 "Enemy Number One" bin Laden was in a Rawalpindi, Pakistan military hospital confirmed on CBS News by Dan Rather. He easily could have been arrested but wasn't because we had a "better purpose" in mind for "America's best known fugitive (to) give a (public) face to the 'war on terrorism' " that meant keeping bin Laden free to play the role. If he didn't exist, we'd have had to invent him, but that could have been arranged as well.

The Bush administration's national security doctrine needs enemies, the way all empires on the march do. Today "Enemy Number One" rests on the fiction of bin Laden-led Islamic terrorists threatening the survival of western civilization. In fact, however, Washington uses Islamic organizations like Islamic Jihad as a "key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union" while, at the same time, blaming them for the 9/11 attacks calling them "a threat to America."

"America's War on Terrorism" - In-Depth

The book is in four parts, each discussed enough below to convey the essence and flavor of the heavily documented power-packed amount of information in the volume's 365 pages - a healthy serving for each day of the year.

Part I - September 11

September 11, 2001 is a day that will live in infamy, but not for how official accounts portray it. It wasn't the first September 11 of note and may not be the last. Chileans remember theirs in 1973 when General Augusto Pinochet, aided by CIA, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, ousted and murdered democratically elected President Salvador Allende by military coup d'etat. It ended the most vibrant democracy in the Americas ushering in a 16 year fascist reign of terror Chileans are still healing from 18 years later. Now it's our turn with Bush administration officials using the myth of an "outside enemy" to hide the real threat we face from within from real enemies in our own government. They're waging war on the world, destroying our civil liberties, and shredding our social state paying for it.

It began long before 9/11, but that day plans became policy, then hardened, expanded and now threatening all humanity. Chossudovsky spells in out stating straightaway "The world is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history (having) embarked upon a military adventure" threatening everyone unless exposed and stopped.

He begins with vital heavily documented background information about 9/11 already covered above. It explained we needed cover for our "war on terrorism." Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda provided it as "Enemy Number One" and his network, hiding the fact he and thousands of Mujahideen fighters were recruited for the largest ever CIA operation in the 1980s. They were organized, financed and sent to "destabili(ze) the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, but (more importantly) destroy...the Soviet Union." CIA's Milton Beardman once explained "If Osama bin Laden did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

In fact, we did, using Pakistan's Military Intelligence ISI as intermediary, so bin Laden and Mujahideen fighters weren't aware who their real paymaster was or why they were recruited. ISI played a crucial role for Washington in the 1980s. Then, from the end of the Cold War to the present, it's been "the launch pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans" turning Bosnia into a "militant Islamic base" and later Kosovo with help from NATO and Washington. This isn't speculation. It's fact. The ISI-Osama-Al Queda-Taliban nexus is a matter of public record, but the "American people have been consciously and deliberately deceived (about it) by their government."

They have no knowledge the Taliban gained power in 1996 the same covert way - helped by US military aid funneled through Pakistan's ISI. Jane's Defense Weekly confirmed "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate(d) in Pakistan under the ISI." Just like today, our hidden agenda was "oil" with Taliban officials "whisked off to Houston" to meet with US oil company giant, Unocal, "regarding the construction of the strategic trans-Afghan pipeline." Afghanistan is strategically located "at the hub of five nuclear powers: Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Kazakhstan." It also borders Russia, China and Iran. It's why Washington wants a permanent military presence in the country run by a puppet client government masquerading as a democratically elected one, and why we're at war so that status won't ever change.

Chossudovsky explains behind the scenes, "military planners in the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA call the shots on foreign policy." They're in league with NATO, the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization (all US-dominated organizations). The real powers controlling everything are "the global banks and financial institutions, the military-industrial complex, the oil and energy giants, the biotech and pharmaceutical conglomerates," other corporate giants and the dominant media, or de facto ministry of state information and propaganda, disseminating deception while suppressing the truth.

The result is catastrophic. The rule of law has been suspended, the Republic hangs by a thread, and "the foundations of an authoritarian state apparatus have emerged" that, in an emergency, could become as harsh as in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia at its worst under Stalin. It's no understatement. Its early disturbing signs are already present and recognized.

The entire scheme is based on the myth of an "Islamic Jihad" being a "threat to America" when, in fact, the CIA and the US intelligence community have close ties to the "Islamic Militant Network." The CIA even admits bin Laden was an "intelligent asset" (as distinct from an "agent") during the Cold War, but that information's long gone down "the memory hole" and forgotten. He was used by four presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan, then GHW Bush, Bill Clinton, and now GW Bush writ large today as "Enemy Number One" in the phony "war on terrorism."

Part II - War and Globalization

Washington's "hidden agenda" involves waging preventive wars to "extend...the global market system (and) open...up new 'economic frontiers' for US corporate capital....in close liaison with Britain." US-British ties in areas of banking, oil and defense industries drive our joint military operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and most anywhere else from this marriage wreaking hell on earth wherever it marauds.

"America's New War" post-9/11 was "in the 'pipeline' for at least three years prior to....September 11." Beginning with the Clinton administration's illegal war of aggression against Yugoslavia, NATO was enlarged to include Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Inclusion of former Soviet satellites took aim directly at Yugoslavia as the West's next target with Russia designated a future one. With that in mind, GUUAM was formed in 1999 comprised of four post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. It's a Western financed regional military alliance, under US-controlled NATO, "strategically at the hub of the Caspian oil and gas wealth with Moldova and Ukraine offering (pipeline) export routes to the West." A key immediate aim of this alliance is to fracture CIS, exclude Russia from Caspian resources Washington wants to control, and politically isolate Moscow combined in one strategic blow.

"Militarization of the Eurasian Corridor" was the plan to do it with Congress adopting the Silk Road Strategy Act (SRS) in March, 1999. It was a framework to develop "America's business empire along an extensive geographical corridor" as well as undermine and destabilize Russia, China and Iran. It was also planned as a first step toward incorporating all former Soviet republics into "America's business empire" and sphere of influence, further isolating Russia and China. The area involved is vast, extending from the Black Sea to the Chinese border in a strategically vital part of the world rich in energy resources a new "Great Game" is being waged for.

As already explained, Afghanistan lies "at the strategic crossroads of the Eurasian oil pipeline and transport routes." Under US control, it's part of making SRS work that requires the "militarization of the Eurasian corridor (for) control over extensive oil and gas reserves (and for protecting) pipeline routes (planned by) Anglo-American oil companies" like BP-Amoco and others.

SRS also aims to prevent "former Soviet republics from developing economic, political and defense ties with China, Iran, Turkey and Iraq (and to) cut the Russians off altogether from the Caspian oil and gas fields." What's planned is a number of pipeline routes (transiting west, south and east) from the Caspian through countries controlled by the Western military alliance. The whole scheme aims to benefit the US-Anglo alliance, cut off Russia, China and Iran, and "weaken competing European oil interests in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia."

When George Bush took office, negotiations with the Taliban were resumed on behalf of Unocal, after the Clinton administration first tried and then broke them off in 1999. The talks failed a few months before 9/11 leading to the Afghan war a scant four weeks later on October 7. It ended after five weeks on November 12 when the Taliban fled Kabul allowing US-recruited and financed Northern Alliance forces to enter the city the next day.

Life in Afghanistan's been surreal ever since. In parts of Kabul, an opulent elite emerged grown rich from rampant corruption and drugs trafficking discussed further below. This opulent Potemkin facade hides the harsh, dangerous, desperate conditions for the vast majority of 26 million Afghans made worse by a US-led war and occupation allowing Northern Alliance warlords back in power. It reinstated their repressive rule that helped bring Taliban to power in the first place over two-thirds of the country including the capital, Kabul. Today it's de jeva vu all over again with Afghans fed up with occupation and Northern Alliance brutality. That's allowed Taliban forces to capitalize on the turmoil and reemerge reclaiming most Southern parts of the country. It's why war rages on with no resolution in site and likely will be as unwinnable as the lost cause in Iraq already acknowledged in US high circles.

The Taliban was ousted in 2001 for various reasons. Among them was its near-eradication of opium production now flourishing again under Northern Alliance-occupation forces rule. Drugs trafficking is big business writ large with Chossudovsky explaining it's "the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade" annually grossing up to $500 billion according to a UN estimate. That's more than double the revenue generated by legal prescription drugs Big Pharma reported in 2005.

A well-hidden Afghan war objective was reinstating opium production that was achieved writ large post-2001. UN anti-drug chief, Antonio Maria Costa, said it was at a record 6100 tons in 2006 (enough for 610 tons of heroin) or 92% of total world supply and 30% more than the amount consumed globally.

Chossudovsky explained narcotics are a major source of wealth, not just for organized crime, but also for the "US intelligence apparatus" representing powerful "spheres of finance and banking." Intelligence agencies and legal business syndicates are allied with criminal enterprises blurring the lines between them, at times indistinguishable. Included are Western international and other banks and their offshore affiliates in tax havens. Multi-billions from illicit drugs trafficking pour into them making this revenue source a huge profit center. None of this is secret, but it remains unreported below the radar. So is how the money is laundered and recycled into legal enterprises in real estate, manufacturing, other businesses as well as used for transactions in stocks, bonds, and other speculative investments.

It's also well documented that CIA trafficked in drugs (directly or indirectly) throughout its 60 year existence and especially since the 1980s when it used cocaine revenues funding the Contra wars in Nicaragua. Today, CIA is partnered with Afghan "warlords" and criminal syndicates in the huge business of heroin trafficking. Along with its other illicit drug dealings, it guarantees the intelligence agency billions in revenue supplementing its annual budget Mary Margaret Graham, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection, disclosed at $44 billion in 2005.

This year it's likely higher with rogue operations ongoing almost anywhere and CIA able to get whatever it wants just for the asking. This is how a rogue agency operates Chalmers Johnson calls a global Mafia-style hit squad in his new book, "Nemesis." It's a "personal, secret, unaccountable army of the president" with mischievous covert illegal operations its main function. They include overthrowing democratically elected governments, assassinating foreign heads of state and key officials, recruiting and training secret paramilitary armies, propping up friendly dictators, and snatching targeted individuals for "extraordinary rendition" to secret torture-prison hellholes from which they may never emerge.

Under George Bush, CIA is more active than ever with double the number of covert operatives. Johnson explains "CIA's bag of dirty tricks....is a defining characteristic of the imperial presidency. It is a source of unchecked power" gravely threatening the nation and shortening the life of the Republic and democratic rule he believes won't survive unless the agency is disbanded.

Along with CIA and Homeland Security, Chossudovsky highlights "America's War Machine" and the major buildup in it begun after 1999. The aim: "to achieve (an unchallengeable) position of global military hegemony....through the largest military buildup since the Vietnam war" with large annual increases planned in future years and no end to this in sight. For FY 2006, the Pentagon's reported budget was $499.4 billion (excluding multi-billions off-the-book for Iraq and Afghanistan). For fiscal 2007, it increased to over $583 billion.

Astonishingly, Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Robert Higgs, says high numbers mask the total annual amount spent on defense in all forms, at home and abroad, that's almost double the budgeted amounts. For FY 2006, his total is $934.9 billion broken down as follows in billions:

-- Department of Defense: $499.4.

-- Department of Energy: $16.6

-- Department of State: $25.3

-- Department of Veterans Affairs: $69.8

-- Department of Homeland Security: $69.1

-- Department of Justice (one-third of FBI): $1.9

-- Department of the Treasury (for Military Retirement Fund: $38.5.

-- NASA: $7.6

-- Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays: $206.7.

Using published budgeted numbers alone, the US now spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. In 2005, China spent around $30 billion, today it's surely higher but even if $50 billion it's around 8.6% of our FY 2007 defense budget and about 5% of it with all other expenditures Higgs includes. Hyping China's threat to the US, however, Department of Defense (DOD) claimed Beijing spent $65 billion in 2005, $90 billion in 2006 and $120 budgeted for 2007.

Note, Higgs US defense spending numbers exclude secret budgets for CIA, NSA, and other off-the-books intelligence operations. It also excludes smaller budgets for the Selective Service System, the National Defense Stockpile Center, and the Treasury's program blocking financial flows to "terrorists." Nonetheless, in total, the numbers are huge, growing, and already out-of-control with Higgs estimating FY 2007 numbers an astonishing $1.028 trillion.

What is it buying us and at what cost? Chossudovsky explains it's for plenty including refurbishing our nuclear arsenal with the latest technology targeting Russia and China. There's also a new generation of "tactical nuclear weapons" or so-called "mini-nukes" including "bunker buster" earth penetrating bombs targeting underground facilities. They're designed to explode deep below ground destroying their targets while containing toxic radioactive fallout. It's already known the latter objective fails based on observed tests so far. The information, however, is suppressed and won't deter the Pentagon from using these weapons even knowing they spread harmful radiation.

Billions are also being spent developing advanced weapons systems including the hugely expensive F22 Raptor fighter plane, Joint Fighter (JF) program and controversial Strategic Defense Initiative "National Missile Defense Shield" intended for offense, not defense. It's now caused a public row with Russia over its planned deployment in Eastern European states close enough to raise justifiable alarm in the Kremlin. Then there's the ultimate imperial project in space under the doctrine of "Full Spectrum Dominance" assuring land, sea, air and space supremacy. It's outlined in the 1998 US Space Command document titled "Vision for 2020" with the cost to achieve this likely to run into trillions of dollars.

Even worse is the danger post-9/11 since the Bush administration scrapped the notion of "nuclear deterrence." A secret report leaked to the Los Angeles Times state three conditions under which nuclear weapons may be used henceforth:

-- "against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack;

-- in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or

-- in the event of surprising military developments" meaning anything the administration or Pentagon cook up as justification.

The administration cites "rogue states" as potential targets, but clearly new policy has Russia, China and Iran in mind and maybe North Korea.

China and Russia aren't ignoring the threat adding to the arms race along with other countries, like Iran, fearful of a US attack. In 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a new "National Security Doctrine" marking "a critical shift in East-West relations." It's further intensified today with Interfax recently reporting Putin saying Washington is turning Europe into a "powder keg" referring to it's missile shield deployment plans.

Putin also used harsh rhetoric ahead of the June G-8 summit accusing the Bush administration of imperialism and starting a new arms race. At a lengthy well-attended news conference, he had plenty to say that was suppressed in the West because of his candor. He voiced the concern of many in the Kremlim that Washington is targeting Russia by surrounding it with military bases, installing missiles on its borders, and allying with CIS states to isolate the country in preparation for regime change.

He emphasized Russia didn't start confrontation and isn't threatening to attack anyone. However, the nation is preparing for the worst and in late May test-fired a sophisticated new intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple warheads and new cruise missiles Russian generals claim will assure the country's security for the next 40 years. With Washington intent on destabilizing their country, Russia isn't ignoring the threat and will act responsibly to defend itself. That includes targeting US and European sites with "ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or some completely new systems" according to Putin. Earlier, Russia also confirmed it wouldn't exclude "a first-strike use" of nuclear warheads "if attacked even by purely conventional means," having only one country in mind as a potential aggressor - the US.

Former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, also aimed sharp comments against Washington and Britain for its support in an early June BBC interview. He said Russia is trying to be constructive, but America is squeezing them out of global diplomacy (and is responsible) for the current state of relations between his country and the West. He also said the Iraq War undermined Tony Blair's credibility and accused America of "empire-building." He added Blair has "himself in the embrace of a military monster (and lost) his credibility in the world and in Europe."

Chossudovsky further deconstructs Washington's agenda post-9/11 saying "the world is at an important crossroads in its history." The US "campaign against terrorism" is a "war of conquest" for empire, threatening future humanity with devastating consequences. "America's New War" isn't confined to the Middle East and Central Asia. It's aimed everywhere by militarizing "vast regions of the world, leading to the consolidation of what is best described as the "American Empire." The "war on terrorism" is cover to "re-colonize not only China (and) the former Soviet bloc, but also Iran, Iraq and the Indian (subcontinent)." Chossudovsky stresses "war and globalization" are bedfellows umbilically linked. They benefit Wall Street and the banking community, Big Anglo-American Oil, US-UK defense contractors and other corporate giants backing this process to extend "the frontiers of the global market system" giving them total control everywhere.

The dominant media claim "free trade" and "free market" reforms will bring the benefits of western civilization to everyone. Unmentioned is how it's being done - through imperial wars of conquest as the method of choice, bringing with them massive death and destruction, extreme exploitation, devastating poverty, totalitarian control, and, in Iraq, the end of the "Cradle of Civilization" dating back thousands of years. Washington's rampaging military juggernaut turned a modern prosperous nation into a surreal lawless armed wasteland with few essential services like electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel and most everything else needed for sustenance and survival including safe streets, homes, schools and all public places. It also contaminated vast areas of Iraq with deadly depleted uranium and other hazardous chemicals and pollutants making the country the most toxic environment on earth and unsafe to live in.

So much for the benefits of Western civilization and "free market" reforms. They champion deregulation and privatizing everything to steal a country's wealth for corporate predators, taking it from the people it belongs to. They get nothing back but misery and persecution if they complain. This is democracy American-style that's all illusion and no reality, and it's coming soon to a neighborhood near you unless resisted and stopped.

Chossudovsky also deconstructs the language as Orwell would do. He justifiably calls the "war on terrorism" a cruel hoax. "Realities," he says, "have been turned upside down."

-- "Acts of war are heralded as 'humanitarian interventions' (to restore) democracy.

-- Military occupation and (killing civilians are called) 'peacekeeping operations.'

-- The derogation of civilities (through totalitarian 'anti-terror' legislation) is called providing 'domestic security' and upholding civil liberties.

-- ....expenditures on health and education (and most other essential social services) are curtailed to finance the military-industrial complex and police state."

-- Mass human poverty is created worldwide through conquest, colonization and countries "transformed into open territories" for savage exploitation.

-- "US protectorates are installed with the blessing of the 'international community.'

-- 'Interim (or illusory democratically elected) governments are formed" run by designated political puppets selling out their nations' sovereignty to the lord and master of the universe for a sliver of the spoils.

Sum it up - this is what "New World Order" rule looks like those now under it can explain better than any writer. It's tyranny masquerading as humanitarian intervention, liberation and democracy. Here's how Orwell once described it: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." Today, it's sustained by the illusion of a phony "war on terrorism" publicly supported through fear of nonexistent enemies, ignoring instead a real one that does - our own government destroying our freedoms in the name of protecting them.

Chossudovsky stresses what's vitally needed now to fight back in our own self-defense - "an unprecedented degree of solidarity (to build) meaningful mass movements" for real change (restoring) the balance of power within society...." He explains "militarization....enforces the capitalist market system....Military bases must be shut down; the war machine....must be dismantled....The 'structures of ownership' must be transformed disempowering banks, financial institutions and transnational corporations (plus instituting) a radical overhaul of the state apparatus." A key priority is "stall(ing) the privatization of collective assets, infrastructure, public utilities (including water and power), state institutions (like hospitals, schools and law enforcement including prisons), communal lands" and all else in the commons.

Further, an illegitimate tyrannical system must end by removing and prosecuting criminal politicians and bureaucrats. The corrupted judiciary must be replaced by one upholding domestic and international law. Our system of checks and balances must be restored, and the Constitution again respected and obeyed, not discarded to the rule of law by what the chief executive says it is, meaning none at all. The "New World Order" must end, consigned to the dustbin of history, lest we end up there or wish we did rather than endure endless misery and abuse.

Part III - The Disinformation Campaign

It's an age-old trick that always works. It's why it's used so often even after being exposed as phony time and again but quickly forgotten in what Gore Vidal calls "the United States of amnesia." It's creating a climate of fear through fictional enemies made to seem real by the pursuasive power of the dominant media. Wars and propaganda are partnered at a time truth is the first casualty. Chossudovsky explains "the main objective of war propaganda (to convince the public war is justified) is to fabricate an enemy (by) drown(ing) out truth."

The war is waged "from the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA" and other parts of the government using the dominant media to instill fear through disinformation and lies justifying anything in self-defense. Logic and reality are manipulated and twisted to create a phony enemy made to look real. An illusion is created that homeland security is threatened and under attack justifying wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are pure acts of illegal aggression for conquest and colonization. Preventive wars are justified even though common sense and any knowledge of international law says they never are for any reason.

Chossudovsky explains how propaganda campaigns follow "a consistent pattern." They need "to instill credibility and legitimacy" based on claimed "reliable" information sources. The dominant media then transmit them through endless repetitions of warnings of the following kinds of information:

-- References to "reliable sources (and a) growing body of evidence" from government, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

-- Claimed evidence linking terrorist groups to bin Laden, Al Queda or sympathetic to them.

-- Threats of imminent terrorist attacks "sooner or later."

-- Vulnerability of "soft targets" likely causing civilian casualties.

-- Possible terror attacks in "allied countries" like Britain, France or Germany where public opinion opposes the US "war on terrorism."

-- "Confirm the need...preventive actions" are justified against "terrorist organizations and/or foreign governments which harbor" them.

-- Claim "terrorist groups" likely have WMDs and are linked to "rogue states" like Iran or Syria.

-- Cite warnings with frightening color-coded alerts based on uncovered information (later proved phony) of impending "attacks on US soil (and/or) in Western cities."

-- Cite law enforcement efforts "to apprehend alleged terrorists."

-- Feature headlined news stories of suspects arrested, nearly always Muslims/Arabs, that usually turn out to be fabricated hoaxes using innocent victims to hype fear.

-- Stressing Homeland Security repressive legislation (like Patriot Acts I and II and the Military Commissions Act) is justified as well as "ethnic profiling" and mass sweeps and arrests.

All this is done to convince the public harsh "emergency measures" and preventive wars are in the public interest even though that turns reality on its head endangering everyone. It works, however, by giving the enemy a face with Osama bin Laden in the lead role. He's still got it, but so did Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi up to the time of his reported death in June, 2006. Al-Zarqawi was called "the new terrorist mastermind" even overshadowing "Enemy Number One" bin Laden. Unmentioned in the media was that Al-Zarqawi, like bin Laden, was recruited by CIA, through Pakistan's ISI, to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and that US intelligence maintained links to the "Islamic militant network" ever since.

While Al-Zarqawi was reigning top threat, he was linked to Ansar Al-Islam, an "obscure Islamist group, based in Northern Iraq." He was also called Al Qaeda's "chief biochemical engineer" and was blamed for "the suspicious white powder found in a letter sent to (former) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist," also containing deadly ricin poison. In January, 2003, a ricin terror alert was issued signaling Al-Zarqawi responsible, later proved phony by British police. As already stressed, the US needs a face on terror to justify illegal wars purportedly against it. While he was alive, Al-Zarqawi provided it along with bin Laden before and since. If neither of these men existed, others would be invented for their leading roles as "Enemy Number One" with still more designees in supporting roles. Without them, there's no justification for the "war on terrorism," and without media disinformation they'd be no way to get the public to go along.

Part IV - The New World Order

This "new world" flaunts the law, wages illegal wars on the world against nonexistent threats, and condemns its own people to state repression in the name of protecting national security it's endangering by its actions everywhere. One of its most outrageous acts is condoning and practicing torture as official state policy. Chossudovsky explains what's now widely known and accepted - that orders to torture Iraqi, Afghan and Guantanamo prisoners came from the highest government levels. Thus, prison guards and military and CIA interrogators followed "precise guidelines" from command directives. A secret FBI email, dated May 22, 2004, confirmed George Bush "personally signed off on certain interrogation techniques in an executive order (authorizing) sleep deprivation, stress positions, use of military dogs, sensory deprivation" using hoods, and who knows what else so far not made public.

What is known is that CIA and the Pentagon have considerable knowledge how damaging these acts are to human beings forced to endure them for extended periods. The current Army field manual states this about sensory deprivation alone: (It) "may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior (and) significant psychological distress." Now try imagining how worse it is on victims undergoing physical abuse and intimidation daily combined with the damaging effects of sensory deprivation, never knowing when or if it will end. George Bush, his Justice Department, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates and others at the highest levels of the Pentagon and CIA ordered these tortures. It's not because they work, but because they effectively destroy human beings, control those who survive it, and intimidate everyone thinking they may be next. It doesn't matter to officials in charge that most of their victims are innocent of any crime.

Unreported is who these prisoners are being tortured. Seton Hall University Law School professors, including Mark Denebeaux, analyzed unclassified government data obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Their report was based on evidentiary summaries from 2004 military hearings on whether 517 Guantanamo "detainees" were "enemy combatants." They learned the majority of Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo weren't accused of hostile acts, but more shockingly, that 95% were seized by Afghan bounty hunters and sold to US forces for $5000 per claimed Taliban and $25,000 for supposed Al Queda members. In addition, at least 20 detainees were children, some as young as 13.

Chossudovsky calls such actions: "reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition" in brazenness "when there was no need to conceal acts of torture." According to administration twisted logic and indifference to international law and norms, "torture is public policy with a humanitarian mandate (because) democracy and freedom are....upheld by 'going after terrorists.' " The 400 year ruling feudal order Inquisition aimed to "maintain and sustain those in authority," and that end justified any means doing it. Today, the Pentagon, Homeland Security and CIA are similar to yesteryear's "great Inquisitor" dispensing justice through a network of religious courts for political and social control. It's mandate was: destroy the heretics, and those charged were guilty by accusation given only a choice to repent and be strangled to death or stay silent and be burned alive.

It's hard calling those times "the good old days," but it's no better today, just more sophisticated. Through years of experimenting, we've become expert inflicing maximum pain making victims endure it the longest time possible before expiring or going insane. Chossudovsky cites this as one example on our "road towards a police state" we're well advanced toward already, or maybe now there. We have outrageous laws in place, Nazis and Stalin would have been proud of, but now can do what Orwell imagined 58 years ago in his 1984 "Big Brother" society controlling everyone. Technology allows near-unlimited surveillance and abusive spying to watch, categorize, tag, and label us through information from our most personal records and behavior. Only the recesses of our hearts, minds and souls remain unpenetrated - so far.

Nothing will change at this "critical juncture in our history" unless we "break the Inquisition." Doing it means "breaking the consensus (and) disabl(ing) its propaganda" campaign of fear and intimidation. That entails "unseat(ing) the Inquisitors" and prosecuting those in high office guilty of crimes of war and against humanity. Without this, they'll be no justice or an end to "New World Order" tyranny safe in the hands of a carefully chosen new "Grand Inquisitor" elected in 2008 picking up where the old one leaves off. He (or she) will follow ruling order policy assuring Congress and the courts are as much in lockstep as today with "the military-intelligence establishment calling the shots on US foreign policy." Benefitting hugely at our expense will be predatory corporate giants licking their chops for more gains ahead from continuing "militarization of (our) civilian institutions" fast disappearing under military/police state control.

Chossudovsky raises the issue of administration foreknowledge of 9/11. He notes the Pentagon conducted a test simulation of a passenger plane crashing into the Pentagon in October, 2000. Ironically, the CIA held a similar (quickly hushed up for a year) test at its Chantilly, Virginia Reconnaissance Office on the morning of 9/11. Both tests refute administration lies they could not predict events they were preparing for.

In addition, Washington had numerous "intelligence warnings" and that senior administration officials lied under oath to the 9/11 Commission they had no foreknowledge or forewarning. They had plenty. "Carefully documented research" also reveals:

-- The US Air Force got stand-down orders on 9/11 not to intervene.

-- A cover-up of World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon investigations occurred.

-- WTC rubble was hastily removed and disposed of before it could be examined.

-- Plane debris at the Pentagon was unaccounted for.

-- Huge financial gains were made through insider trading in the days prior to 9/11.

-- WTC Building 7 either mysteriously collapsed or was "pulled" the afternoon of 9/11.

-- Critics accuse the White House of "criminal negligence" for disregarding crucial intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attack. These critics contend "they knew (in advance) but failed to act" preventively.

Chussodovsky rebukes this line of reasoning saying revealing Bush administration lies regarding foreknowledge contributes to reinforcing the 9/11 cover-up. Foreknowledge then "becomes part of the disinformation campaign (serving) to present Al Queda as a threat (to American security), when, in fact, Al Queda is a creation of the US intelligence apparatus" and is still being used by it. Pinning responsibility on Islamic terrorists justifies the "war on terrorism" and against Iraq and Afghanistan. It also provides cover for repressive police state legislation shredding our civil liberties and dismantling our social state to pay for militarizing it.

While debate centers around "incompetence" or "an intelligence failure," Al Queda and "Enemy Number One" are blamed," and the beat goes on allowing the administration to get away with (mass) murder literally. Explained above, this is Washington's strategy. Without Al Queda to blame and a gullible public believing it, the Bush house of cards collapses, there's "no war on terrorism" nor all it spawned at home and abroad.

The 9/11 (whitewash) Commission was part of the scheme. It revealed Bush administration officials lied under oath, then did nothing about it. "Yet nobody had begged the key question," Chossudovsky asserts: "What is the significance of these 'warnings' emanating from the intelligence apparatus, knowing that the CIA is the creator of Al Queda and that Al Queda is an 'intelligence asset' (as distinct from an agent)." Were Bush administration officials deliberately lying to the 9/11 Commission to cover up a bigger lie no one's been held accountable for?

Chossudovsky debunks another 9/11 lie asking "On the Morning of 9/11: What Happened on the Planes?" Events in their cabins were based on supposedly "corroborating evidence" from cell and air phone conversations to family members or others. Only one cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was recovered - from UAL 93. The 9/11 Commission gave the impression cell phone communications to and from the planes were of good quality. It was never mentioned prevailing technology made it near impossible to place a wireless cell call from an aircraft travelling at high speed above 8000 feet. Installed air phones, in contrast, provide clear communications.

The Commission's timeline suggests the planes were at higher altitudes so claimed cell phone conversations reported were dubious at best and likely contrived, exaggerated or plain lies. Reports of these calls on the day of the attack were crucial "to sustain the illusion" America was under attack. It was "part of the disinformation campaign....dispel(ling) the historical role played by US intelligence in supporting the development of the (Al Queda) terror network."

Heightening the level of fear and conditioning the public for what may lie ahead, we're now warned about a "Second 9/11." Former CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks did it in an interview in December, 2003 saying "another mass, casualty-producing event" would result in the Constitution being suspended and martial law declared - in other words, the end of the Republic officially replaced by tyranny. Chossudovsky stresses Franks' comment wasn't opinion. It was "consistent with the dominant viewpoint....in the Pentagon....and Homeland Security....in case of a national emergency." Further, the "war on terrorism" is the cornerstone of Bush's National Security doctrine providing "justification for repealing the Rule of Law" in the event of a significant external threat or event.

Should this happen, it will amount to the "Criminalization of the State, the repeal of democracy," and the end of America as we know it - officially. From all available evidence, it appears this is planned using a fabricated terrorist threat and second 9/11 to pull it off with public consent believing it's for our own security, henceforth compromised and lost.

Chossudovsky discusses the major Pentagon 2005 document outlining what's planned ahead for global military dominance along with police state control at home. It's called "The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (NDS). It extends the "contours of Washington's global military agenda (envisaging possible) military intervention against countries (not constituting) a threat to the US homeland." This goes beyond preventive war to a more "proactive" strategy against declared enemies to "preserve peace (and) defend America." This is insanity, yet four major threats are considered:

-- "Traditional challenges" from recognized military powers.

-- "Irregular threats" from forces using "unconventional" means.

-- "The catastrophic challenge" from WMDs.

-- "Disruptive challenges" from "potential adversaries" using new technologies against us.

NDS listed 25 countries "deemed unstable and, thus, candidates for (military) intervention." Those named remain secret, but some have been identified including Venezuela, Nepal, Haiti, Algeria, Peru, Bolivia, Sudan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. It's hard imagining Iran, Syria and Lebanon aren't targets as well with others qualified for membership by failing to place our sovereignty above their own. Helping them "stabilize" is used as the pretext for any planned military intervention. That means any nation opting out of our "free market" model can expect the Marines to show up to return them to the fold. It's called democracy American-style.

At home, as already explained, creating fear is the method of choice keeping the public on board supporting the phony "war on terrorism." That's what color-coded terror alerts are all about. They're seen daily on TV, and raised to "high risk" Code Orange at strategic moments when elevated fear levels are needed to get legislation passed, divert attention from administration embarrassments, diffuse anti-war protests, or simply re-stoke public angst about terror threats so people don't forget them. Never mind, as Chossudovsky documents, these threats, headlining for days at times, are nearly always based on "fabricated intelligence."

So in the run-up to the March, 2003 Iraq war, a disinformation campaign was waged about WMDs and linking Saddam with Al Queda and 9/11. It was to build public support for the war and weaken anti-war protests against it that were unprecendented in size worldwide before it began. Once the truth on both counts came out, it was too late, and it was on to the next scare scam.

Chossudovsky cites the Air France Christmas, 2003 stand down orders based on phony evidence Al Queda and Taliban operatives were on Flight 68. It was a lie, but it kept Los Angeles International Airport on "maximum deployment" throughout the holiday period and FBI officials working around the clock - for nothing because of "fake intelligence" to heighten fear. The nation was on "high risk" Code Orange alert, six heavy-traffic Air France flights paid the price, and so did the public getting scammed.

Whenever a strategic moment arises or Washington thinks public fear is ebbing, get ready for more headlined news of terror plots and arrests made or suspects being hunted down. It happened in early June with hyped stories of a plot to blow up JFK Airport's jet fuel tanks and supply lines some reports claimed would be "more devastating than 9/11." This nonsense keeps being used because people believe it.

This time, four men were charged even though no crime was committed, the suspects had no apparent means to carry out the supposed plot, and the only so-called "evidence" comes from conversations recorded between "the source" (identified as an unnamed drug trafficker) and defendants. We're told the informant agreed to infiltrate the "terror cell" in return for leniency on his pending sentence, guaranteeing he'd say anything to get himself off.

This plot gets thicker, but the point is once again hyped accounts have again been used to stoke public fear. And once again, Muslims are vicimized as "terrorists." Sadly, even though likely innocent, these men may end up convicted and imprisoned just like other high-profile targets Sami Al-Arian and Rafil Dhafir. They're both innocent men now serving hard time victimized by Washington's "war on terrorism."

Chossudovsky explains we live in a "Big Brother, Homeland Security State." A July, 2004 Homeland Security Council (HSC) report refers to a "Universal Adversary" (UA) defined as four categories of "conspirators:"

-- "foreign (Islamic) terrorists;"

-- "domestic (anti-war, civil and human rights) groups;"

-- "state-sponsored adversaries" ("Rogue States, unstable or failed states"); and

-- "disgruntled employees" (labor and union activists).

Chossudovsky explains the notion of a "Universal Adversary" is being used to prepare the public for a "real life emergency situation" under which no political or social dissent will be tolerated. If it happens, it will trigger a Code Red Alert signaling the highest threat level of severe or imminent terrorist attack preparing the public for imposition of martial law and suspension of the Constitution. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, anti-terrorist "drills" were held in major cities to build "a broad consensus among 'top officials,' within federal, State and municipal bodies, as well as within the business community and civil society organizations that the outside enemy exists and that 'the threat is real.' " Chossudovsky calls it "a world of fiction (that) becomes fact."

In the event of an emergency, the military will be involved that was forbidden under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, never enforced, and now repealed since October 17, 2006. That was when George Bush signed the Military Commissions (torture authorization) Act and National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2007 containing a provision annulling the 1807 Insurrection Act. Now the president can (legally) deploy federal or National Guard troops on the nation's streets for whatever he calls public disorder, including peaceful anti-war protests. These laws, along with Patriot Acts I and II (violating our most personal privacy rights) have set the table for martial law imposition whenever the chief executive orders it.

Chossudovsky explains media disinformation is preparing the public "for the unthinkable" likely to be police state rule under the facade of a "functioning democracy." Its parameters have already been defined:

-- "the Big Brother surveillance apparatus, through....consolidated data banks on citizens;

-- the militarization of justice and law enforcement;

-- the disinformation and propaganda network;

-- the covert support to terrorist organizations;

-- political assassinations, torture manuals, and (homeland) concentration camps (being built); and

-- extensive war crimes and the blatant violation of international law."

Conclusions

Chossudovsky wrote an important book in 2002 titled "War and Globalization." This volume, "America's War on Terrorism," updated it with voluminous, heavily documented new information on the state of America today under both parties and the threat that poses for the Republic, hanging by a thread. Though published in 2005, it's as fresh now as when it first appeared, and his conclusion is essentially the same as what Chalmers Johnson wrote in his 2006 book, "Nemesis - The Last Days of the American Republic." Johnson explained our well-entrenched militarism and single-minded pursuit of empire saying we have a choice. We can keep on this path and lose our democracy, but history is clear: we can't have both.

Chossudovsky and Johnson both agree - the signs are ominous, and conclusive evidence post-9/11 proves it, amply spelled out in "America's War on Terrorism." That doesn't mean we're doomed or change can't come. It can, but never from the top down. The lessons of history are clear. Mass-action grassroots efforts can achieve what governments won't do willingly. Scare tactics to bring us in line won't work if we don't let them. But it will take millions mobilized to resist to do it. Is saving the Republic incentive enough to try? We better hope so.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on www.TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir at Terre Haute Prison's New Communications Management Unit - by Katherine Hughes

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2007, pages 12-13
Special Report

Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir at Terre Haute Prison’s New Communications Management Unit
By Katherine Hughes

AT PRECISELY 7 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, 17 federal prisoners across the country were taken out of their cells, held in isolation for two days, then bused to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Terre Haute, Indiana. Here the government quietly began implementing the first stages of a secret new program, the Communications Management Unit (CMU). A completely self-contained unit housing almost exclusively Arab and/or Muslim inmates, it eventually will hold approximately 85 prisoners.
Special new rules set out in a “CMU Institutional Supplement” dated Nov. 30, 2006 include severe restrictions on prisoner communication. Contact with family and friends is limited; outgoing and incoming mail is monitored and copied, with a one- to two- week delivery delay; and no contact visits are allowed. Instead of 300 minutes of phone time a month, prisoners may receive only one 15-minute call a week, which the warden has the power to reduce to just three minutes a month. Unlike the usual weekly or biweekly all-day contact visits, visits in the CMU are for  two hours, just twice a month, and are restricted to non-contact only. Calls and visits must be conducted in English unless prior arrangement is made.
According to Jennifer Van Bergen, the journalist who broke the CMU story, there are only three government offices—all within the Justice Department—that have authority to issue changes to federal prison operations: the Office of the Director of the Prisons Bureau, the Office of Legal Counsel, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General. Van Bergen was unable to get confirmation of where the authorization originated. The Bureau of Prisons Web site () does not list CMU among its facility abbreviations, and a search of the site for “CMU” or “Communications Management Unit” yields no result.
In a Dec. 18, 2006 letter, however, CMU inmate Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir wrote:

“No one seems to know about this top-secret operation until now. It is still not fully understood. The order came from the Attorney General himself. The staff here is struggling to make sense of the whole situation. There are 16 of us, all Muslims but two, with one non-Arab Muslim. We are housed in what we are told was the holding area for those on death row!!!!! We are told this is an experiment, so the whole concept is evolving on a daily basis.” [emphasis added]

According to Howard Keiffer, executive director of Federal Defense Associates, an Institution Supplement cannot exist without the authorization of a National Program Statement, and the CMU has no such authorization. The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) requires that all prison regulations be promulgated under the law, yet there was no public notice of any changes to prison programs and no opportunity for opposition to be heard. Civil libertarians are concerned that the CMU operates by racial and religious profiling and that the severe restrictions placed on inmates’ communication inhibit their ability to mount an appeal. Keiffer says the CMU “violates not only the Constitution, but [also federal] statute[s and] regulation[s], and its implementation almost certainly is also violative of the APA.”
Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said that although the CMU’s present population consists of inmates convicted of terrorism-related cases, the unit will not be limited to prisoners who fit that definition. Many of those currently held there, however, are not considered high-risk prisoners, meaning the government definition of a terrorism-related case needs to be examined closely.

CMU Prisoner Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir and The War on Muslim Charities

Some of the major casualties in the government’s “war on terror” have been Muslim charities and their principals. Two CMU inmates, Enaam Arnaout of Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) and Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir of Help the Needy (HTN), were defendants in Islamic charity cases. Neither has been convicted of charges that have anything to do with terrorism: Arnaout accepted a plea agreement by pleading guilty to one charge of “racketeering conspiracy,” and after a long trial Dhafir was convicted of violating the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) and white-collar crime.
The government justifies its targeting of Islamic charities by saying it is going after the money funding terrorism. Just three months after 9/11, in December 2001, the government raided and closed down the country’s three largest Islamic charities: the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), and the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), accusing them of supporting terrorism. In each case, alleged “guilt by association” meant that the charities’ assets were frozen and their principals imprisoned without bail. Since then the government has shut down several additional smaller Islamic charities. However, “Muslim Charities and the War on Terror,” a 2005 report by OMB Watch—which describes itself as “a nonprofit research and advocacy organization…formed in 1983 to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)”—concluded that despite their new investigative powers, government authorities have failed to produce evidence of terror financing by Muslim charities.

Dhafir and other HTN associates were arrested in the early morning of Feb. 26, 2003, just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m. that day, law enforcement agents interrogated 150 Muslim families who had donated to the charity. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that a number of “funders of terrorism” had been arrested.

A founding member of the mosque in Syracuse, New York, Dhafir is a leader among the local Muslim community. An Iraqi-born oncologist, he has been a U.S. citizen for almost 30 years. Before his arrest, he and his wife, Priscilla, were very active in Syracuse civic affairs, and Dhafir often spoke at events and on local TV and radio about health and cancer care. In the early 1990s, in direct response to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the brutal embargo on Iraq, he founded Help the Needy. For 13 years it sent food and aid to civilians suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq at the insistence of the U.S. and Britain. Dhafir devoted much of his life to prayer and charity, and government records showed that he donated half his income to charity every year. In his oncology practice he treated those without medical insurance for free, paying for their chemotherapy out of his own pocket.

Confident in his innocence and the American system of justice, Dhafir refused to accept a plea bargain, and the government piled on charges. When his case finally came to trial 19 months after his arrest, he faced a 60-count indictment of white-collar crime.

The government employed many tools to inhibit Dhafir’s ability to mount a defense. Despite the facts that Syracuse’s Muslim community put up $2.3 million in bond money and that Dhafir offered to wear an electronic tag, he never was granted bail; his assets were frozen, making it more difficult to hire defense counsel; and he was denied access to both his records and his counsel. The government’s unlimited resources, moreover, allowed it to present its case in minutiae—seven government agencies had investigated Dr. Dhafir for five years before the case came to trial. The limited resources of the defense counsel, on the other hand, enabled it to call but a single witness, who testified for a mere 15 minutes.
Although state and national officials smeared Dhafir in the press and New York Gov. George Pataki described Dhafir’s case as “money laundering…to help terrorist organizations,” local prosecutors successfully petitioned Judge Norman Mordue, the presiding judge who had denied Dhafir bail on four occasions, to prevent the charge of terrorism from being part of the trial. This ruling made his defense a nightmare: throughout the trial the prosecution hinted at more serious charges, but the defense was prohibited from addressing these inflammatory innuendos.

As a direct result of the lack of terrorism charges, only the local Syracuse newspaper, The Post Standard, covered the proceedings. The paper proved to be little more than a mouthpiece for the government, however. On the rare occasion that it did provide coverage of a cross-examination, it immediately followed with a restatement of the charges in the indictment. Convicted on 59 counts of white-collar crime and held without bail for 31 months, Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years in prison for a crime that he was never charged with in a court of law—money laundering to help terrorist organizations.
The government continues to hound Dhafir. In January of 2007 it successfully overturned an appeals court order to release his transcripts to him at the court’s expense. The three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals gave no reasons and did not address the points in opposition.

Nor are Islamic charities free from government harassment. The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case will come to trial this July—six and a half years after its assets were seized and its principals arrested. It is imperative that members of the public attend this trial to monitor its proceedings.

For more information visit . Non-tax-deductible contributions in any amount may be sent to the Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund, c/o Peter Goldberger, Esq., Attorney at Law, 50 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore, PA 19003. Checks should be made payable to “Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund.”

Katherine Hughes attended nearly every day of the 17-week Dhafir trial, and for the last two and a half years has tried to educate people about Dhafir’s case and the plight of Islamic charities in the U.S.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Reviewing Noam Chomsky's New Book: "Interventions"

Reviewing Noam Chomsky's New Book: "Interventions" - by Stephen Lendman

Noam Chomsky is MIT Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics and has been a leading political and social critic of US imperial policy for over 40 years. He's also one of the world's most influential and widely cited intellectuals on the Left. He's the author of many hundreds of articles and publications as well as dozens of books including his latest one and subject of this review - "Interventions."

The introductory Editor's Note explains that post-9/11 Chomsky began writing short, roughly 1000 word, concise articles distributed by The New York Times Syndicate as op-eds. They were widely picked up overseas but rarely in the US and only in smaller regional or local papers. They never appeared in the New York Times that circulated them worldwide but not to its own readers. It shows how the Times and all the corporate media suppress views contrary to dominant mainstream thinking. They're verboten in a nation where A.J Liebling once said "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

Imperfect as the European press is, Chomsky's essays appeared in the International Herald Tribune and London Guardian and Independent among others. Even one of Mexico's leading national newspapers, La Jornada in Mexico City, frequently publishes Chomsky's articles.

"Interventions" is a collection of 44 op-ed pieces, post-9/11, from September, 2002 through March, 2007. Included is one written specifically for the New York Times in February, 2004 titled "A Wall is a Weapon." Chomsky added notes at the end of each one briefly expanding on and updating what he wrote earlier up to the book's recent publication. In all his political writings, including the op-eds in "Interventions," Chomsky has always been a fierce critic of US foreign and domestic policy and the dominant US media's practice of "manufacturing consent" for it assuring criticism never exceeds what political elites allow. It means there's never enough of it, what's most needed, or anything diverging from general consensus views corporate America and Washington-based rulers of the world agree on.

Chomsky confronts these rulers in "Interventions" as he's always done in his writings and public appearances. As the Editor's Note says: "Chomsky believes that the freedom to challenge power is not just an opportunity, it's a responsibility." He does it as effectively in concise essays on selected issues as in expanded versions in more extended articles and books. Chomsky is also an optimist believing people can change things saying "One of the clearest lessons of history....is that rights are not granted; they are won" but not by being passive or timid. On the broad range of issues in "Interventions," Chomsky isn't timid, and that's why his views aren't allowed in the dominant corporate-controlled media because speaking truth to power and the public just might catch on.

"Interventions" - 44 Op-Ed Essays Critical of Bush Administration Foreign and Domestic Policies

This review covers a healthy sampling of Chomsky's book dealing mostly with foreign policies but also some domestic ones in a post-9/11 world. It's under an administration former President Jimmy Carter recently called "the worst in history (because we) endorsed the concept of pre-emptive (in fact, preventive meaning illegal aggression) war....even though our own security is not directly threatened." In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Carter elaborated further, like no other former president ever did. He almost sounded like Noam Chomsky from what he said about George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The UK leader's equally culpable and shortly leaving office in disgrace with a public approval rating lower than George Bush's.

Chomsky's first essay is titled "9/11: Lessons Unlearned" in which he addresses George Bush's question: "Why do they (Arabs/Muslims) hate us?" Fifty years ago Dwight Eisenhower's National Security Council explained it's because we support Middle East despots and "oppos(e) political or economic progress" wanting only control of the region's vast oil reserves. It's no different today with people everywhere respecting our freedoms but hating our policies, especially toward them. With good reason, they view the US as a "terrorist regime," which it is.

Feelings on the Arab street stem for Washington's longtime one-sided support for Israel's repressive policies toward Palestinians. It fueled a six-decade conflict because Israel, with US backing, wants it kept unresolved until it achieves the goal noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, and other courageous observers explain - to ethnically cleanse, by any means, all parts of Palestine Israelis want for themselves leaving Palestinians the right to move elsewhere or live only on cantonized worthless scrub land Israel doesn't value.

Twelve horrendous years of harsh Iraqi economic and political sanctions also fueled extreme Arab and Muslim anti-US sentiment now far worse since March, 2003. It boils over daily in the country and around the world reflected in Canadian General Andrew Leslie's comment made in summer, 2005. Explaining why the Afghan war will be long, he said: (because) "every time you kill an angry young man (or his family), you're creating 15 more who will come after you." He might have finished his thought that the way to stop them killing us is stop killing them.

Before the March, 2003 invasion alone, the toll on Iraqis was horrific. Twelve years of inhumane, unjustifiable sanctions caused the deaths of as many as 1.5 million victims of US genocidal policy and likely close to another million since then. They were aimed at removing Saddam it took an illegal aggression and occupation to achieve. It proved a recruiting bonanza for all sorts of resistance evident throughout Iraq today and around the world targeting America and our allies. It won't stop till repressive policies do beginning with the illegal occupations of Iraq and Palestine. Until then, the worst may be yet to come.

It proves what what former Israeli military intelligence chief, Yesoshaphat Harkabi, said 25 years ago on how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's as true today in Israel and applies to Iraq and everywhere else. "To offer an honorable solution to the Palestinians (or other repressed peoples) respecting their right to self-determination: That is the solution of the problem of terrorism. When the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitos." It goes without saying respecting peoples' human and civil rights everywhere is a good way to end wars, too, and justifiable resistance they and illegal occupations spawn.

The current Iraq war dominates much of the book including the early March, 2003 article before it began titled "The Case Against the War in Iraq." In it, Chomsky explained the Bush administration's National Security Strategy's belligerent "imperial grand strategy" intentions to control the world by force and reign supreme through a policy of "preventive war." The Nuremberg Tribunal called that "the supreme international crime" against peace with guilty Nazis convicted of it hanged. Warnings this agenda could lead to terrorist attacks far worse than 9/11 weren't allowed to interfere with the administration's imperial ambitions. That was their policy in 2003. It remains unchanged now, whatever the consequences.

Chomsky continued his analysis in his late March, 2003 essay "Now That the War Has Begun." In it, he explained what's evident now - that "There is no reason to doubt the near-universal judgment that the war in Iraq will only increase the threat of terror and development and possible use of weapons of mass destruction, for revenge or deterrence." With the US now an international pariah, hated and condemned by ordinary people nearly everywhere, it may only be a matter of time before the WMD threat, in fact, happens. It won't be pleasant when it does if it takes the form of a "dirty bomb" making a large US city uninhabitable forever from radiation contamination.

Chomsky continues saying "the stakes of the war and its aftermath almost couldn't be higher (with one possibility being) destabilization in Pakistan (making) 'loose nukes' (available) to the global network of terrorist groups (and) other possibilities, no less grim." But he notes a promising sign from the unprecendented world opposition to war in Iraq before it began that's continued since but not with enough intensity to stop the horrific conflict now in its fifth year. It's longer in duration than WW II with no signs it's ending after the pathetic Democrat-led Congress surrendered to the Bush administration's demands. Defying growing public sentiment, it passed the largest ever supplemental funding bill ($120 billion) in the nation's history with more assured for the asking - at least so far.

Chomsky noted in March, 2003 what's still true today - that the US is pursuing "new and dangerous paths over near-unanimous world opposition." Instead of responding to threats by addressing legitimate grievances, the Bush administration chose permanent aggressive wars and a policy of constructing "even more awesome instruments of destruction and domination." It guarantees responses to them, if used, will be unpleasant at least and awesome and horrific if worst case predictions come true.

In his August, 2003 "Road Map to Nowhere" piece, Chomsky addresses the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He quoted Oxford University Middle East scholar Hussein Agha and former Clinton administration Arab-Israeli affairs special assistant Robert Malley saying "the outlines of a solution have been basically understood for some time now" and entail "a territorial divide on the international border, now with a 1 - 1 land swap." Chomsky explains it never happened nor will it because Israel, with US backing, rejects it even in modest form.

Rhetoric aside, "road maps" and other past peace initiatives have all been cruel hoaxes going nowhere nor will any now barring a huge change in policy only mass world condemnation and forceful action with teeth can achieve. In deference to Chomsky's contrary view, it must include boycotts, divestment, political and economic sanctions, and isolation of Israel from the community of civilized states. It's not a fit member of them as long as it continues pursuing barbaric policies best characterized as slow-motion genocide with the US equally culpable in Iraq and Afghanistan and for providing Israel unlimited aid.

Chomsky notes "a just peace could come" citing Northern Ireland as a recent example and South Africa another, although no one should assume those countries now resemble paradise as facts on the ground prove otherwise. It's especially true in South Africa where noted journalist John Pilger's new book "Freedom Next Time" explains how life there today is harder than under apartheid. It's because "Thatcherism" and New World Order Washington Consensus neoliberalism moved in making things worse. It happened under Nelson Mandela's presidency who signed on to it telling Pilger "You can put any label on it you like....but, for this country, privatization (deregulation and free market capitalism) is the fundamental policy."

In October, 2003, Chomsky wrote about "The United States and the United Nations," that's little more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the nation where it's been headquartered on Manhattan's east side since 1952. Whenever the US can't bully or co-opt the world body, it just ignores it doing what it wants like waging illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only the Security Council can authorize them or Article 51 of the UN Charter allowing the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council (acts) to maintain international peace and security."

The Bush administration has contempt for international law using it only when it serves its imperial interests and condemning or ignoring it otherwise as "quaint and obsolete." At an early March, 2003 news conference, George Bush made his position clear saying "when it comes to security (meaning US imperial interests) we really don't need anyone's permission." So when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington's position is unbending - "The United States must end up in effective control (of these countries using) some facade of democracy if that proves feasible." It means "democratic" elections can go ahead as long as the lord and master of the universe controls things no matter how they turn out.

And that's exactly how it is now in Iraq and Afghanistan from US-orchestrated "demonstration elections." They installed puppet governments having no say over their own affairs except what Washington allows. As Chomsky puts it: "Washington must be in charge, not the United Nations, not the Iraqi (or Afghan) people," and that's the way, in fact, it is today in both countries.

Indeed, it will be in Iraq if the puppet parliament passes the US-drafted new "Hydrocarbon Law." It's a blueprint for plunder, giving foreign investors (US and UK Big Oil mainly) a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a sliver for themselves. Oil giants, like Exxon-Mobil and BP Amoco, will get exclusive control of 63 of the country's 80 known oil fields plus all newly discovered deposits. Even worse, Big Oil will get long-term contracts up to 35 years and be free to expropriate all revenues, investing none of them in Iraq's economy. Foreign investors will also have no obligation to partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. Iraqis only get the right to take it, or else.

Iraqi oil workers aren't taking it. They went on strike for three days over a range of issues. Prime Minister al-Maliki then shamelessly issued arrest warrants for Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) leaders sending his military to surround the workers. He then had to back down June 8 when an Iraqi general in charge disobeyed his orders, demanded his government "sort it all out," or he'd resign and join the strikers. In response, IFOU suspended the strike saying it will be resumed and expanded in a week unless an agreement is reached. Washington and Big Oil aren't happy, but this issue is far from resolved.

In November, 2003, Chomsky wrote about "Dilemmas of Dominance" noting in George Bush's "axis of evil" North Korea and Iran (unlike Iraq since 1991) aren't defenseless. It's a lesson to all other potential US-targeted nations. "If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible military threat" because the Kim Jong-il regime may have nuclear weapons while Iran does not, claims no intent to develop them, but no one in the West knows for sure.

Iran's importance, however, lies in its having the world's third or fourth largest proved oil reserves (depending on who's measuring what reserves) while North Korea is "one of the poorest and most miserable countries in the world," except for one other thing. It has great geostrategic importance within Northeast Asia (including China, Japan, South Korea and resource-rich Siberia in Russia's East). It's now "the world's most dynamic economic region, with close to 30% of global gross domestic product," compared to 19% for the US, plus "half of global foreign exchange reserves."

"The US and Europe now trade more with Northeast Asia than with one another," and Washington's concern is that integrated regions like Europe and Northeast Asia may choose an independent course from Washington. Today, that may be more likely given the state of things under George Bush with worldwide alienation growing in the face of aggressive US policies getting harder to accept or endorse.

Chomsky also wrote about "Saddam Hussein Before the Tribunal" in December, 2003 before this writer did it in November, 2006 in an article called "A Trial Giving Kangaroos A Bad Name." It covered the 11 month travesty of justice ending November 5 with his conviction already decided before proceedings began.

He then addressed "Saddam Hussein and Crimes of State" in January, 2004 citing the "long, tortuous association between (Saddam) and the West" and how embarrassing it would be for that relationship to come out at trial, so it didn't. Even at Nuremberg (Chomsky calls "the least defective" post-conflict tribunal), war or other crimes were only what losing sides did, never winning ones under a long-standing policy of victor's justice meaning none at all.

So voices of UN humanitarian coordinators Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponek could never be publicly heard explaining why they resigned in protest. In 1998, Halliday said he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one million individuals, children and adults," and that 5000 Iraqi children were dying needlessly every month. That's inconsequential to the Bush administration in its openly stated National Security Strategy (NSS) policy. It's a scheme to "dismantle much of what remained of the system of world order" and rule by force "with Iraq as a demonstration project." It tells the world we mean business, so stand aside or you're next.

Chomsky also covered Israel's Annexation/Apartheid wall in an article called "A Wall as a Weapon" with Israel (with US financial and political backing) continuing to build it in defiance of international law. The World Court in the Hague ruled 14 - 1 construction must end at once, the existing portion already built must be dismantled, and affected Palestinians must be compensated for their losses. Israel flouts the decision.

He also wrote about "The United States: Terrorist Sanctuary" with Washington notorious for granting safe haven to ousted tinpot despots and "a rogues' gallery of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists." That's never a problem, however, when their crimes aided this country's imperial agenda. Two noted examples Chomsky cites are Orlando Bosch, and Bosch accomplish Luis Posada Carriles. They masterminded the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 (among their many terrorist acts) killing 73 on it, but never answered for it and now live freely in the US.

Chomsky also wrote on "Iraq: The Roots of Resistance" explaining US intelligence knew well in advance "Washington's most formidable foe (would be) the resentment of ordinary Iraqis....hostile to the American occupation." The Bush administration ignored the warning feeling that price was minor compared to its greater goal to establish permanent military bases in a client state "at the heart of the world's major energy sources."

Chomsky addressed "Who Is to Run the World and How" in June, 2004 noting former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbiigniew Brzezinski writing "America's security role in the (Middle East) region (meaning military dominance) gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies" (also dependent on) energy exports from the region." That would keep those regions from opting for a course independent from us, so controlling Iraq's oil and reorganizing the Middle East under US control prevents that from happening. Uppermost for US policy makers is preventing successful defiance of US policy. Costly wars spawning terrorist fallout is of lesser importance and a price worth paying for unchallengeable imperial dominance, provided we can get and keep it. That's very much in doubt today, however, with things falling apart in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Chomsky addresses a crucial domestic issue in "Democracy Building Must Begin at Home" in August, 2004 and in October in "The Disconnect in American Democracy." He did it with the presidential elections approaching and things in disarray on the ground in Iraq and soon to be in Afghanistan as well. He observed the campaign pointed up "the severe democratic deficit in the world's most powerful (nominally democratic) state" where true democracy is more illusion than reality. He noted how detached the candidates were in their common agenda from issues mattering most to ordinary people. They pay little more than lip service to vital concerns like health care ranking at the top with costs exploding and 47 million people having no insurance because they can't afford any.

Bush and Kerry got to run with enough funding by "similar concentrations of private power" controlling everything. That includes picking the candidates and, practically openly since 2000, which one wins, decided in advance making a mockery of the whole system. Investigative journalist, Greg Palast, covered it in his 2006 book, "Armed Madhouse," and his 2003 one, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." In them, he showed how elections today are more like auctions than a serious exercise of democracy. He documented how the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen and 2008 is already shaping up for more of the same.

Chomsky explains changing things when they're not right is the way it's always been. It has to be from the grassroots that against long odds ended slavery, and won rights for labor, women and minorities. It also helped end the Vietnam war through mass energized opposition on the streets to it. So even though Chomsky urges voters to make "sensible choices" at the polls (limited as they are), the "main task is to create a genuinely responsive democratic culture, and that effort goes on before and after electoral extravaganzas, whatever their outcome."

Two articles in November and December, 2004 help unmask the benevolent facade we present to the world, no longer needing Chomsky to do it two and half years later. The first is titled "We Are Good" and the second the "Imperial Presidency and Its Consequences." The first essay observes "the fundamental principle (in international relations) that 'we are good' - 'we' being the government....benevolent, seeking peace and justice" even though, in practice, the opposite is true. However, the Bush agenda of permanent war "carr(ies) an appreciable risk of ultimate doom" according to some straregic analysts like John D. Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher. They wrote in the summer 2004 issue of "Daedalus," the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chomsky says isn't given to hyperbole.

The administration's contempt for international law, scorched earth war agenda, and future intent to use nuclear weapons, like they're just king-sized hand grenades, means the fate of the human species and most everything else some day may be up for grabs. Chomsky observes that "the world is in awful shape today" although better off for an "unwillingness to tolerate aggression." It's because the Bush administration's "conception of presidential sovereignty (the imperial presidency) is so extreme (it's drawn) unprecendented criticism from the most sober and respected journals."

It's based on the "unitary executive theory of the presidency." Lawyer, academic and author Jennifer Van Bergen wrote about it at length in her January 9, 2006 FindLaw Legal News and Commentary article titled "The Unitary Executive: Is the Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?" Her conclusion is unequivocally no. The "doctrine violates the separation of powers" fundamental to our system. It puts the chief executive above the law, in effect, making him a dictator.

George Bush usurped this power claiming the law is what he says it is and proved it around 800 times (more than all past presidents combined) attaching "signing statements" to congressional legislation. In doing so, he illegally annulled provisions in them because nothing in the Constitution allows such practice. Chomsky asks how can we best respond to a situation so dire? He notes our "legacy of great privilege and freedom" saying we have a choice - abandon all hope or "further a democratic culture in which the culture plays some role in (political and economic) policies." Saying these are hardly radical ideas, he stresses history shows "rights are not granted; they are won" by going for them from the grassroots.

In April, 2005, Chomsky addressed "The Universality of Human Rights." He cited the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the "modern standard" including Article 25 in it stating - "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control (with) Motherhood (and children born in or out of wedlock)....entitled to special care and assistance."

Needless to say, the Bush administration rejects these rights by its policies alone. Earlier, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, Paula Dobriansky, while serving under Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush, refuted what she called the "myth (that) economic and social rights constitute human rights," even though the majority population feels otherwise. Surveys clearly show popular preferences favor sharp cuts in military spending along with large increases for education, health care, medical research, job training, conservation, renewable energy and other essential social programs enhancing life. The current power structure wants no public involvement in policy choices pointing to what Chomsky calls a "growing democratic deficit."

In 1973, banker David Rockefeller (grandson of oil tycoon and mega-corporate predator John D.), Zbigniew Brzezinski and others founded the Trilateral Commission that included notable members like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. It's purpose was to counter a "crisis of democracy" from the 1960s. That meant too much of it as sectors of the population (called "special interests") became active politically while these rulers of the world expect them to remain inert. So action was needed to restore them to their proper status - quiescent, letting "the people who own the country....run it" (for their own benefit). Those were Founding Father John Jay's words, our first Supreme Court Chief Justice, showing his contempt for ordinary people. Today, things are so extreme under George Bush even Jay might be shocked enough to think we went too far and say change is needed to soften things.

He and the other Founders would likely be alarmed by Chomsky's April, 2005 essay called "Dr. Strangelove Meets the Age of Terror" with the title alone pretty scary. The subject addressed is a real nuclear threat with the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) "never....weaker or its future less certain" according to Thomas Graham, former US special representative for arms control, nonproliferation and armament. He warned in the April, 2005 issue of "Current History" if the treaty fails, a "nuclear nightmare world" may become reality. His concern is that Bush administration policy is the main threat. It effectively renounced NPT and its crucial Article VI pledging nuclear nations make "good faith" efforts to eliminate these weapons because having them heightens the risk they'll be used endangering the planet. However, it's even worse than that as the Bush administration:

-- claims the right to develop new type nuclear weapons, not work to eliminate ones we have;

-- ignores NPT intending to test new weapons developed;

-- ended the protection of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;

-- rescinded and subverted the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention;

-- spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined with large future increases planned;

-- refuses to consider a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty preventing more nuclear bombs being added to present stockpiles already dangerously too high; and

-- claims the right to wage preventive wars under the doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" using first strike nuclear weapons.

As a result, former NATO planner, Michael McGuire, thinks a "nuclear exchange is ultimately inevitable," and Harvard international relations specialist, Graham Allison agrees with a "consensus in the national security community (that a) dirty bomb (attack is) near-certain" given current policy and the fact that fissionable materials aren't secured.

Chomsky also wrote about "The Social Security Non-Crisis." It was about the Bush administration concocting a propaganda blitz in 2005 (no longer heard lately) of an impending phony Social Security "fiscal crisis" to convince the public to let Wall Street sharks control their financial future. Meanwhile, he noted, a real Medicare crisis looms with medical costs spiraling out of control and the US having the most unfair, inefficient system in the industrialized world. Reforming it through more efficient, lower cost national health care is off the table because insurers and Big Pharma won't tolerate any public benefit harming their right to run the system their way earning huge profits from it.

Then, there's Chomsky's take on "The Bush Administration during Hurricane Season." In it, he noted "a long-gathering storm of misguided policies and priorities preceded the tragedy, citing a pre-9/11 FEMA report. It listed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the country - a terrorist attack in New York, an earthquake in San Francisco, and a major hurricane striking New Orleans with the latter becoming an urgent FEMA priority in 2005. Elaborate plans and a successful simulated hurricane drill were conducted, but the war, budget cuts, other preventive measures and overall Bush administration indifference meant the Katrina disaster was inevitable.

Four Chomsky essays deal with Latin America, the first in December, 2005 called "South America at the Tipping Point." In it, he says "From Venezuela to Argentina, the hemisphere is falling out of control, with left-center governments almost all the way through. Even in Central America....the lid is barely on."

The view from mid-2007 looks different with only Venezuela and hopefully Ecuador (still a work in progress under new President Rafeal Correa, barely six months in office) very much embracing a left-center social democratic agenda. In contrast, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia have mostly followed Washington Consensus neoliberal dictates. That's in spite of their distancing themselves from US one-way FTAA trade deals and IMF and World Bank crushing debt slavery from their Faustian-imposed rules assuring debtor nations always get a raw deal.

But Chomsky noted in 2005 indigenous populations were more active and influential, especially in Ecuador and Bolivia. Today they're still active there and in other Latin countries but have modest influence, at best. He also observed internal integration was strengthening, including South-South interaction with Venezuela in the lead responsible for most positive results in how it deals with its neighbors and other world trading partners like China.

In March, 2006, Chomsky's op-ed piece was called "Asia, the Americas, and the Reigning Superpower." In September he wrote "Latin America Declares its Independence," and in December his article was titled "Alternatives for the Americas." In these, he noted Washington's concern that Europe, Asia and Latin America might move toward more independence away from US dominance, and, to a degree, there are some hopeful signs, it's happening. Middle East misadventurism consumes the Bush administration, unable to admit what every sensible political analyst knows - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost. In addition, the longer we stay embroiled, the worse things get and more likely US world influence will wane encouraging other nations to become more independent, less fearful of the consequences.

Central to policy everywhere is energy, and aims to control it create the possibility of shifting alliances and more potential nightmares for Washington. Crucially ahead is who lines up with whom, and one relationship Washington fears is greater India-China cooperation. Add Venezuela, Russia and Iran to the mix and Washington's fears will be huge if those ties become strong and solidified enough to counter US dominance. Throw in a couple of other Middle East and Central Asia producers, and it spells potential big trouble for Washington planners.

Another Washington fear is if Latin states ever, in fact, unite in a "continent community similar to the European Union." It would give them far more clout together than any single regional state could have on its own, even one as large and important as Brazil. Washington has long dominated Latin America it dismissively calls its "backyard." It's done it through "violence....economic strangulation," and brutal exploitation through installed or co-opted governments profiting as junior partners in the savage exploitation of their own populations for profit, the way it's been for 500 years going back to conquistador rule.

Today, Hugo Chavez is a symbol of change and courage standing up to the ruling hegemon. That makes him the single greatest threat Washington faces - a good example that's spreading enough to cause alarm in the Capitol. Since taking office in February, 1999, the US tried and failed three times to oust him by different means. The current Washington-orchestrated made-for-media street protests over the RCTV Channel 2 shuttering may indicate a fourth attempt is now underway. Chavez apparently thinks so accusing the Bush administration and internal opposition of planning a "soft coup with a slow fuse." He compares it to the same US scheme used in Ukraine's 2004-05 Orange Revolution and Georgia's Rose one in 2003. Both times, leaders allied with Russia were deposed and replaced with ones favoring the West.

Chavez is standing firm and is actively moving ahead with his socially democratic agenda while solidifying ties with regional neighbors and other states. He seeks integrated alliances (a "prerequisite for genuine independence" from Washington) and relations with other countries based on cooperation, solidarity, complementarity and respect for each nation's sovereignty. He wants it to be free from the strangling control Washington imposes in its relations with the Global South, especially in Latin America it feels it owns. The confrontational lines are drawn with the spirit of democracy alive in Latin America, headquartered in Venezuela, and the Bush administration determined to crush it.

It's one reason Washington seeks bilateral deals in the region and elsewhere and just signed one last December with India. It's called the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act, the name itself reeking in Orwellian Newspeak. The act is another blow to NPT effectively authorizing India's nuclear weapons development along with other nuclear-related assistance enough to cause nuclear weapons specialist Gary Milhollin alarm. The deal violates "cardinal principle(s)" established to reduce nuclear weapons proliferation and delivery systems for them. They undermine the barriers to nuclear war and "may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys a US city."

Hedging its bets to "become equidistant between the US and China," India agreed to a similar deal with the Asian giant the US fears most as a future challenger to its supremacy. It's because of China's size and fact it's unintimidated by US dominance. But while Washington gambles with our future, the potential threat from an eventual nuclear holocaust get greater. The Bush administration is giving India "a free pass around nuclear controls," says nuclear threat expert Michael Krepon. It means "other states will be lining up to profit from proliferation," export controls are now off the table, and the safety of NPT enforcement is null and void. It points to a potential frightening future ahead thanks to reckless US policy putting geopolitics and corporate profits ahead of common sense security.

In June, 2006 Chomsky wrote on "Disarming the Iran Nuclear Showdown." He observed "The urgency of halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and moving toward their elimination, could hardly be greater. Failure to do so is very likely to lead to grim consequences (and) a near meltdown (a year ago and now) seems....imminent over Iran('s)" commercial nuclear enrichment program. It conforms to NPT standards while countries like India, Pakistan and Israel are nuclear outlaws. Under George Bush, so is the US, by far the worst one of all.

Washington, with help from the West it bullies, demands Iran stop its program in contrast to its strong support for it under the Shah before 1979. Today, it's different with Washington wanting NPT's Article IV strengthened. It grants non-nuclear states the right to produce fuel for commercial nuclear energy use. Chomsky believes that because of today's technological advances, tightening Article IV "would have to ensure unimpeded access for nonmilitary use" but prevent it from being for weapons. That's not easy as nuclear expert Helen Caldicott explains. She calls operating commercial nuclear reactors atom bomb factories as a single 1000 megawatt reactor produces 500 pounds of plutonium annually, while a mere 10 pounds can produce a bomb powerful enough to devastate a large city.

Despite the heated Western rhetoric targeting Iran's nuclear program and its claimed interference in Iraq, only one country poses a real threat to what Chomsky calls "the end of biology's only experiment with higher intelligence" and most everything else. He means the US, especially in the age of George Bush. So Washington is in the lead pointing fingers at phony nuclear threats from other countries while never admitting it's the greatest one of all. It's the only country with a publicly stated policy to freely use these first strike weapons under its doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" meaning preventive illegal aggression international law bans.

Chomsky revisted Iran in March, 2007 in his essay titled "The Cold War Between Washington and Tehran." He noted Iran and Syria are enemies because they "failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands. Iran by far (is) the most important" because of its vast oil reserves we want control over the way things were after the CIA-led coup ousted democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. It reinstated the US-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi's generation-long fascist reign of terror. It lasted until the 1979 Iranian revolution deposed him, setting up a confrontation between Iran and this country ever since. It now threatens to erupt in open war, possibly a nuclear one.

Iran's importance goes beyond oil as its "influence in the 'crescent' challenges US control" there. Chomsky notes "By an accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in largely Shiite areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well." He continues explaining "Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shiite alliance controlling most of the world's oil" independent of the US. If such a bloc ever emerges and links with the Asian Energy Security Grid and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in China, US power in the world will be seriously and potentially permanently undermined.

The Bush administration will do everything possible to prevent this, but Chomsky doubts it will attack Iran. World leaders and three-fourths of the US public are strongly opposed. So is the Baker Commission representing a more conciliatory position, but no less hard line on controlling the world's energy resources.

While not able to withstand overwhelming US power, Iran is three times the size of Iraq and no pushover. It would be crushed in a head-to-head confrontation with Washington but could put up a fight and inflict some heavy damage in the process not likely to go down well at home. It would also inflame the Middle East far more than already. Iran can also "respond in other ways," Chomsky notes, "inciting even more havoc in Iraq" and throughout the region. The public is already fed up with endless wars, demands they end, so anything is possible on US streets and the next election if George Bush starts another one with his toughest opponent so far.

Instead of war, Chomsky thinks Washington may try destabilizing Iran from within stirring up trouble and "secessionist tendencies" from much of the population that isn't Persian, including in oil-rich areas like Khuzestan on the Gulf that's largely Arab. It's also urging harsher sanctions wanting to isolate and "strangle Iran economically" that won't likely work because China and Russia won't buy it and Europe only will part way. For years, Iran sought a negotiated settlement to long-standing differences, but Washington always rebuffed diplomatic efforts because it demands unconditional surrender to its agenda. Iran, under its present leadership won't ever buy that, and why should it, or any other nation.

Following Israel's brutal, illegal assault on Lebanon last summer (planned months in advance with US backing), Chomsky wrote about "Viewing Lebanon as if through a Bombsight." He noted in August, 2006 "a fragile truce remains in effect," but it may be near a tipping point now in the wake of days of savage fighting pitting the US-backed Fouad Sinora's Lebanese army against non-Palestinian Fath al-Islam fighters holed up in the northern Lebanese Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of soldiers, fighters and innocent civilians have been killed and many thousands displaced risking this will spread to other parts of the country reigniting a civil war like the one that raged from 1975 - 1990. It tore apart a country tormented as well by repeated Israeli assaults and invasions including the infamous 1982 one killing 18,000 or more Lebanese and many Palestinians living there.

A year ago Chomsky wrote about the "US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretense to legitimacy" because there was none. The reason for it had nothing to do with the phony one given about the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Never mentioned was that for decades Israel made a practice of "kidnapping and killing civilians in Lebanon or on the high seas, Lebanese and Palestinians, holding them in Israel for long periods, sometimes as hostages, sometimes in secret torture chambers like Camp 1391."

Israel's summer, 2006 assault on Gaza was also planned well in advance just waiting for a convenient pretext to unleash that happened to be the capture of one Israeli corporal, hardly reason to declare war. Just like in Lebanon, Israel's reaction was unjustifiable and savagely extreme, but as long as the US backed and funded it, Western and Arab world complaints were barely audible before ending altogether. It left targeted Lebanese and Palestinians devastated to this day and now victims of new fighting.

Israel and the US want to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas, but it's no secret they helped create them both to use against other past enemies like Yasser Arafat and the PLO in the 1980s until he was co-opted by the Oslo Accords in 1993 to become Israel's enforcer. Today, conflict continues in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Lebanon is teetering on the edge of the unknown, and Chomsky notes "new generations of bitter and angry jihadis" likely are being created the way Israeli Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz's said they would be. What else could warrior states like the US or Israel expect, "view(ing) the world through a bombsight."

But Saad-Ghorayeb warned a year ago what's as true today, stated in slightly different terms. US and Israel's unending wars on Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Lebanese and any other designated Arab or Muslim targets may cause "all hell (to) be let loose (from) the Shiite community....seething with resentment" and determined to get revenge violently. And Sunnis may join them if the Muslim world unites against the US, Israel, and the West. As Chomsky puts it: "viewing the world through a bombsight will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even in 'apocalyptic terms.' "

The book's final essay was written in July, 2006 called "The Great Soul of Power." In it, Chomsky deals with two themes borrowed from the life and work of the late Palestinian American scholar and activist Edward Said - the "culture of empire (and) responsibility of intellectuals." He condemns "obedient intellectuals" for what Hans Morgenthau called "conformist subservience to those in power." He notes a "clear doctrine....reign(ing) in Western journalism and almost all scholarship, even among critics of policies - 'American exceptionalism' (or) the thesis that the United States is unlike other great powers, past and present, because it has a 'transcendent purpose:' 'the establishment of equality and freedom in America' and....throughout the world."

Policy must then conform to "interests," but not those of the population. It means the "national interest" or those of the privileged who dominate society running things. In America and the West, the major influence is "internationally oriented business corporations," no surprise. In contrast, public opinion has "little or no significant effect on government officials" beholden solely to wealth and power.

"Interventions" ends with Chomsky explaining how hard it is striking "a proper balance between citizenship and common purpose, on the one hand, and communal autonomy and cultural variety on the other." These questions should be "high on the agenda of people who do not worship at the shrine....of power." These are people, including Chomsky's readers, wanting to "save the world from the destructive forces" threatening our survival. They want to change it believing "a more civilized society can be envisioned and even brought into existence." Why not, if enough committed people become dedicated to achieving it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.